Welcome to the Denver Takayama Sister City Committee
        2018 pictures page
     (Click on any picture to see a larger version.)

Events for Denver Takayama:

 

Shinnenkai, January 13 at home of T.R. Reid

Gene and Kimiko Side	Matusmoto family and Hiromi	Sachiko, Kaoru and Carol-Lynne	Tom, the Hirakobas, and David Kumpe	Risa and Masaki Hirano
Some of the desserts!

 

Setsubun, February 11 at Sonoda's

In the side room	The sushi roll challenge - Jeff	The sushi roll challenge - Roger	Craig and Gayle	The Oni mask

 

 

Delegation visits Mayor Hancock, March 15

Osamu Hirakawa and Hayshi Kobayashi visited Denver March 12-16. While they had various appointments other days, on March 15 they met with Mayor Hancock in his office.
	Kobayashi and the Mayor	Kimiko and the Mayor discuss our trip flyer	Hirakawa presents Mayor with gift of rice	Love the rice!

 

 

City of Takayama Park work day, May 20

the 2018 workday was different from any other, due to the fact that the Buddhist group Soka Gakkai volunteered to plant cherry trees in the park.	Actually, they planted cherry trees along the Cherry Creek, from Colorado Blvd. to University Blvd. The Easternmost side of that stretch is where the City of Takayama Park is located.	We took advantage of this occasion to have Parks and Rec help us find and relocate additional decorative rocks to Takayama park.
			In Red Rocks Park	Here's a good one!

 

Saturday May 12, I visited the park and saw the newly obtained rocks ready to be moved; here's a video as I walked towards the park:

 

Here's the rocks before final placement: ===>
	Starting configuration	Starting configuration

 

Monday May 14, a small crew, lead by Darell, Hiro, and Patrick, guided a Parks and Rec crew in placing the rocks; lots of work like this:

 

Hiro Hiraga and Patrick Allen	Darell Havener, in hat			Now we're all set for the actual work day, Sunday May 20.

 

 

Sunday May 20, was the official work day:

Trimming a character pine	Waiting for the ceremony	Waiting for the prigram	Taiko kicks it off
The big dig	Dignitaries and tree	Lauren Planting		At the end of the work day

 

And here's what the park looked like after:

 

 

 

Bunka No Hi (Culture Day), Nov. 3

The University of Denver Department of Languages and Literatures sponsored our first ever Culture Day celebration, in Sturm Hall on the D.U. Campus
	Display tables in the hall	Nodoka Epel talks about caligraphy	Yumino Kimura reads her poetry	Tina Proctor tells the old goddess stories
Thomas DeZauche on Buddhist influence on art	Ghost Paintings, 1	Ghost Paintings, 2	Ghost Paintings, 3	Ikebana by Jaishree Shunmugaraj
Ikebana by Jaishree Shunmugaraj	Something fishy here - shaving bonito	Music to lift the spirit	Music to lift the spirit	Music to lift the spirit

 

 

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Events for other organizations

Colorado Anime Fest, March 24-25, 2018

We have a presence	Next to Dragon Boat Festival	Marc dressed for the occasion	A Wizard?	A Jedi night?
We have a princess	Princess 2	Princess 3	A magician	Heck of a chastity belt!
Princess 4	Princess 5	Her name is 'Sakura'	Comin' down the escalator	Bit startling