Ambassador of Udon

             

I received a big honor on April 14th! The City of Fujiyoshida honored me with a free lunch at an udon shop of my choice (Miura, of course), and a big presentation at City Hall. They were impressed with my udon page, and thanked me for promoting Yoshida Udon. They gave me an award (a box of udon) for having visited all 63 shops in the Udon Federation. They also gave me a special "Ambassador of Udon" card, and my very own Yoshida Udon flag.

I was the first foreigner to have visited all the shops! I'm also the first person besides shop owners to receive the flag. City Hall went out of their way to make the ceremony special, and I am very thankful for their generosity. Additionally, I also won a case of bottled water for submitting a winning postcard in the Udon Stamp Rally.

Videos:

The event was covered by Yamanashi's TV outlets, and I've captured the video. Click the following pictures to see the 90 to 180 second segments:

Digital Copy of NHK News (10MB)
NHK News (4.4MB)

Channel 10 News (22MB)
Channel 10 News (8MB)


UTY News (27MB)
UTY News (9.9MB)


Newspapers:

Here's the five newspaper articles we've found:

JPG of Article on Sannichi Online 4/15/06; also print edition

Scan of Article in 4/15/06 Yomiuri Shimbun

Scan of Article in 4/16/06 Mainichi

Scan of Article in 4/16/06 Asahi Scan of the National Edition of the 4/22/06 Asahi, "People" section

Fax

After seeing me on the news, a TV Producer sent this fax to my school. It's for a famous Japanese TV show, hosted by Tamori-san

Page 1 Page 2

1:30 at Miura Udon

My hands are shaking.

It's hard to eat with TV cameras pointed at you.

Especially when you're using chopsticks.

Thankfully, the Wife joined me.

2:30 at Fujiyoshida's City Hall

Presentation from the Bu-cho

I'm awarded a case of udon.

I'm awarded a Yoshida Udon flag

Shaking hands with Jun, who sort of started this whole thing by linking my site to Fujiyoshida's Home page