@ . . . . Last Saturday, I was doing the demonstration at the Sorbonne astronomical observatory. Four students of Louis Le Grand high school (considered the best high school in Paris, just near Sorbonne) were attending, with the Japanese mother of one of them.
My observation of the sun eclipse on august 11 was not really interesting because of the bad weather conditions, and wrong weather forecasts which took us to bad places. It was raining one hour before the total eclipse. Then, I could see the decreasing crescent of sun through thick clouds; for this reason, the glasses were not even necessary. Then, everything suddenly became dark, the lights of a factory automatically turned on, and somebody let off a firework.
Afterwards, the light came back, I could see the thin crescent of sun again through the clouds for a few minutes, and it began raining once more.
At the beginning of this month, our offices have been removed to their new location at the south of Paris, because of the asbestos problem. Everything is OK. Only a few computers were destroyed while they were taking the poisonous dust out of them with a special vacuum-cleaner, using masks, gloves and white clothes.
Thank you very much for giving me again this summer the telephone number of Masami Murakami, which I had mistaken when I copied my address book with my computer. Though he was very busy, he took me to Enoshima, which I had never visited before.
@ . . . . For the Sun Eclipse in August, I could not use an airplane with my friend, because no private airplane was allowed to fly on that day. Another friend proposed to take me by car, but his car broke down just after we met, at six in the morning. So, I went by train to Noyon, which was the official observing site of the Societe Astronomique de France. More than ten thousand people were waiting there, and many others did not succeed to come, because the roads were crowded. So, I decided to make a camp in a village, about 5 kilo meters from Noyon, where I could visit a ruined middle age church. Anyway, concerning the sun, there was not so much to observe because of the bad weather.
I understand that Mercury was quite low when you observed it. In France, it was even lower, and it was considered impossible to observe.
I was happy to swim at Oshima last year when your wife took me there. You can send me the photographs at my present address. This year, I could swim in Ashinoko. My mathematical meeting was near Yamanakako, but everybody told me that the water of Yamanakako is not good quality.
It will be nice if we can meet next year. I have a possibility to be invited in Tsukuba, so, I might come at a different season.