[Date & Time] Thursday, November 19, at 10:00~18:00
[Spots] Yokohama Archives of History, Yamate Park, Harbor View Park, and Hyakudan Kaidan (100 Steps)
[Visitors] 1 German woman and her Dutch husband
[Attendant] 1 KSGG member
[Language] English
I guided a German visitor and her husband. She wanted to follow her grandfather’s traces, who had worked at a German Navy Hospital at Yamate 40-banchi from 1907 to early 1912. They arrived at the south exit of Kannai Station just at the time scheduled. I had prepared some materials on the opening of Japan and the data on Yokohama German Navy Hospital (closed in 1911 due to the relocation to Qingdao) collected through the website. I explained those materials and took the couple to the Yokohama Archives of History. There they read a book with colored postcards of Yokohama which had been sold from the opening of Japan till the Meiji Era. The couple were impressed with them, saying that many of those postcards are the same ones that they have in their house. They took a long time to see all the pages of the book.
Beforehand I found out that Yamate 40-banchi (this lot number does not exist now), where the German Navy Hospital used to be, must be somewhere around Ferris Jogakuin(girls’ school) near the tennis court in Yamate Park, referring to the Map of Yokohama made by the Geographical Bureau of the Ministry of the Interior. I took them there and they were greatly impressed with the place which reminded them of her grandfather living one hundred and several years ago. They took many pictures of the place and said they would tell their relatives what they found there. Around the end of the Meiji Era her German grandfather had worked by himself in Yokohama for about five years, sending many letters, picture postcards, and photos to his family in his home country. He left Osanbashi by ship after seeing the closing of the Hospital where he had worked. After one hundred years his granddaughter visited the same place. Fortunately I had a precious experience to help her visit the same place reminding her of her grandfather.