Ruby City Matsue Tour

I visited Matsue City in Shimane prefecture to attend as a panelist of the OSS promotion event held by Shimane Univ.

Whie waiting some person in front of the gate of the University, I noted the gate itself.

According to the explanation plate of the gate, it is made of pier white granite, built in 1924(TAISHO 13th). And it was registered as the tangible cultural properties.

Actually, this city is unique. It has been labeled "Ruby City" recently, because Mr. Matz who develops the programming language "ruby" lives in Matsue, so the city government use to promote "ruby" strategically.

It is the reason why the focus of the event is almost how to cultivate the software industry in Matsue using ruby language. We enjoyed some discussions among the regional government officer and some business person, anyway.

After that, we were invited to join the dinner, that was shimane-style. Of cource it was good.

Here are Deborah, the manager of Open Source lab in Oregon State University, and Noda, Shimane Univ. They are active and zealous to promote Open Source.

By the way, I was surprised Ms. Deborah could use HASHI - chopsticks very well, and she liked to have some Japanese sake. She told me that using hashi is a kind of common habit in the West. Really?

On the table, we could see the Japanese haiku written by the restaurant manager so called "okami".
It reads freely:

We feel spring is coming, when we see the apricot tree in bloom like an attractive woman, and the Shinji-lake is shining simultaneously.

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