New shoes			Pansy by YK
	Forrest Gump said “My Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.” I was running late for an appointment because a meeting with my client in Osaka, which started from Sunday noon, did not end even after five o’clock in the evening. I was supposed to call on a friend of mine, a chemist who lives in a southern town of Osaka - the second largest city in Japan. The householder welcomed me saying “It’s been so long. How many years has it been since we last met?” In fact, the last time I met her was in 1976 when my wife and I visited their company dormitory in Kobe, a large city close to Osaka. During the cozy dinner with a beautiful cuisine on the table, the licensed chef as well as the householder asked me a tough question, holding a glass of beer. "Kanamaru-san, how will our life be? Can my husband’s new venture manage to make ends meet?” My friend, holding a glass of wine replied to her jokingly, “We are on a large ship. Sure, we will be a millionaire in the future.” “It better not be a raft,” she instantly snapped back. Since then, I invested in several rather expensive textbooks such as molecular science for undergraduate, genomes and computers, business of bio-technology, and so forth. I have been talking with a few medical doctors, local government people, and venture capitalists in the bio-technology industry. I was questioned by a venture capitalist in Osaka who moved from Tokyo two years ago, “Have you started living in a weekly base apartment?” Although I have not yet called a real estate agent in Osaka, I have become a frequent commuter between Osaka and Tokyo, approximately 560Km distance, three hour bullet train ride. Almost every other week, I have been staying at the same hotel in Osaka, and becoming familiar with casual restaurants close to the hotel. The two day consulting project in January - coaching a strategic business for an international pharmaceutical company - was completed as agreed. The story, however, does not end here. The client decided to start its own venture company for biosciences, and I was requested to help them. It was not just “help.” After the two day project, we had long meetings more than five times. Although working in a team, I virtually developed the business plan working, coping with Excel sheets for financial simulation, and finally wrote up an article of incorporation bylaw. April 10, 2003, the new company of six members including my friend was incorporated in Kobe city, coincidentally where my friend and his wife started their new life. Forrest Gump’s Mama always said you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes, where they’re going, what they’ve been.			new shoes
	May 2003