we went, last year with mayor lee and anita to sign the sitter -- sister city agreement in kiel which was signed recently. a special recognition to our chief of protocol who is back with us. [applause] and thank you again to mark chandler and certainly the person who i had the initial conversation with, matthew. thank you for all your hard work on this. and last, but certainly not least, thank you to our department of public works. and the s. of nt s.f. nta sign u have made this happen. in any case, thank you for being here. this is a great celebration and we can always come visit here going forward into the future. with that, i would like to introduce a gentleman who has been, there he is, right behind me. he has been the longest, i believe the longest serving chair of a sister committee or the longest-serving chair of the sister committee of osaka. again, it was our first sister city relationship in san francisco. the gentleman is literally a stalwart in our japanese community here in san francisco. i would like to bring up alan oka moto. [applause] >> while. being introduced by the