Big Announcement!

- Another Message from Makiko -

I hope everyone is enjoying a great holiday season!

I have a BIG announcement to make: this website will participate in the Internet Fair 2001 Japan (also called Inpaku) as a pavilion! The Fair will be held by the Japanese government from December 31, 2000 through December 31, 2001. It is an internet exposition, in which over two hundred interesting websites will be linked from the Inpaku site as pavilions on a wide variety of themes!

You might have noticed a small banner on the top-right corner in my webpages. It is an Inpaku's banner/button. Its design may be changed, but it will stay through the period of the Fair, indicating that these pages constitute an official pavilion.

My site will participate as an "open entry" site, as opposed to the "specific theme" sites that are built by central and local governments, NPO's, private companies, etc.

There will be some pavilions which focus on arts and crafts from Japan and around the world. I hope you will enjoy those wonderful sites as well as mine! I have some new exciting plans for this site during the period of the Fair, so please don't miss them!!!

Thank you for visiting my site this year, and I send you my very best wishes for the coming new year!


Post script: All the events associated with the Internet Fair was ended in success on December 31, 2001, and the Inpaku site was closed on January 31, 2002. The links from my site to the Inpaku site were also removed. I made some changes to the above announcement accordingly. I am very grateful for the encouragements and support that I received during the Fair. Many, many thanks to you all!

December 2000

I've been working hard on a large translation work plus a few other projects! I am hoping to have a relaxing time with family on new year's eve and new year's day, thought I may be wrapped up in the internet as the Internet Fair 2001 Japan (Inpaku) will begin on the 31st... (You can jump to the Fair by clicking the banner/button on the top-right corner of this page.)

March 2001

I am very sorry that I could not update this site for a long time. Through the middle of this month, I was terribly busy with the translation work that I mentioned above. Then, shortly after I finished it, I got a bad headache and high fever - maybe a flu or something, which kept me in bed for more than a week (sigh...). I am getting better, and I'll to get back to this site as soon as I'm fully recovered. Again, I'm sorry, and I sincerely thank you for your patience!

August 2001

Gosh, time really flies! After I recovered from the bad cold, I worked hard to catch up my work schedule. Then I got a translation work of the exhibition catalog Contemporary Netsuke: The Kinsey Collection. The work was finished in late July, and the catalog is now on sale! (Yippee!) I'll make a mention of the catalog in the publication section soon. I've been to the exhibition five times already! The display is absolutely beautiful... By the way, International Netsuke society's Boston convention is just around the corner. Many interesting events including the netsuke exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston are scheduled during the convention, and my parents and I are looking forward to it very much! Finally, the Inpaku office sent me a list of (randomly?) chosen messages that were submitted by those who voted for my site through the orange button (at the bottom of each page) by the end of June. I am very grateful for the warm, encouraging comments!!! Voting is on until December 31, 2001, so if you haven't voted yet, please consider doing it. Thanks! (Postscript: The orange button was removed at the end of the Inpaku period. I am grateful for those who have supported this site!)

September 2001

At the beginning of this month, the number of total accesses since April 21, 2000 reached 10,000!!! Isn't that great?!

September 29, 2001

I was in Boston when the terrorists attacked the U.S. - it was the last day of the International Netsuke Society's convention. I was supposed to leave Boston on the 12th, but was stranded in the city for about a week with my parents (as well as many other people). I finally arrived in Japan safely on the 19th (I was and am still a bit tired, both physically and mentally...). The convention itself was very enjoyable, and I hope to post a report on it in this site later. In the meantime, I would like to express my sympathy to the Americans for what happened on September 11th.

December 10, 2001

I haven't been able to post a report on the Boston convention yet - I have been extremely busy with many duties, and I have only been able to update exhibition information and one or two other pages... Thank you for your patience. I said in August that Inpaku's vote would continue until the end of this year, but it was ended in November. If you have voted for my site, thanks a lot!!!

December 31, 2001

Today is the last day of the Internet Fair (Inpaku). I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers of this wonderful event, and my sincere thanks go to you and the rest of the visitors throughout the year. It was a great benefit for me to get to know a lot of people through the event, and their warm comments were very encouraging. It was also great to have a large number of visitors who found my site through Inpaku. Even though the Fair ends tonight, this Koryuen site continues, so please come visit again and again!! Today is also the last day of the year 2001. I wish you all have a peaceful new year!

March 9, 2003

I am so sorry for being slow in updating the site during the last year. I've got so much more translation work than ever before, which, along with other things, has kept me very busy... Interestingly, many of the translations that I did last year were related to lacquer ware, one of which was Makeup and Makeup Utensils in Edo Period Japan. More to come, and I'll keep you posted!! By the way, I'm not sure why it happened, but the access counter was reset sometime during last month. I remember it was over 20,000, and it's now about 460. How could that happen?? Anyway, I am grateful to you all for visiting my site!!

March 28, 2005

Having commenced in March 2000, Koryuen now celebrates its FIFTH anniversary!!! Yippee!!! Due to my ever-increasing amount of translation work and other duties, updating of this site have unfortunately been quite irregular, but I know a lot of viewers have beared with me (I'm really sorry!), thanks to their patience, and visit my site repeatedly, for which I am very thankful. Looking back these five years, I am filled with deep emotions - it began with a few pages, receiving a few hits per week, and then the site has had the "word of mouth" spread as well as some advertisements, making the number of contributors and visitors of the site grow so much - much more than I could imagine. I have received a lot of feedback and wonderful responses. For instance, some netsuke aficionados told me that when they do "net-surfing", they always begin with Koryuen. Shop owners, exhibition organizers, and book sellers were pleased to tell me that they had some customers/visitors who learned of their events and publications through Koryuen. It has been a rewarding experience for me to organize this site, and I am very pleased to be able to make contributions, however small they may be, to the growth of the field of netsuke in my own way. To show my appreciation and mark the fifth anniversary, a new section has been added - it's called "Museums" to introduce museums and institutions around the world that have netsuke and other related objects. I hope it will be of interest to you. Once again, I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to all of you who have visited and cooperated with my site during these five years, and I would like to ask for your continuous support!!!