Tsushima-Gyeongsangnam
-do
Mineya Deputy General Manager, Construction Department, Capital Region Branch, Japan Foundation Engineering Co., Ltd.
Around the beginning of 2007, Mr. Utsunomiya Yorinaga, who previously worked in the chemical plant division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and now runs a cram school in Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture, dropped in to visit me at Nishi-Kasai Station on the Tokyo Metro, near my home.
He has been a close friend of mine since around 1977, when I was a site supervisor at Fujita Industries (now Fujita, a general contractor; some of you may remember that at the time the soccer team won the Emperor's Cup twice and was the predecessor of Shonan Bellmare), and he later helped me out when I was designing the world's largest crane ship, Kaisho (4,100 ton lifting capacity), at Takeishi Design Office.
He suddenly came to visit me and handed me a bold memoir by Gentaro Kajikuri (formerly of Maeda Corporation), chairman of the International Highway Construction Agency (the predecessor of the International Highway Foundation), about how he encountered a Jaguar in Navirequi, Brazil, and how it calmly passed by it.He also told me that Professor Kajikuri had finally begun digging the next section of the Nagoya inclined shaft of the Japan-Korea Tunnel.
That was all he told me, and he was apparently on his way to a study session bringing together cram school owners from all over the country, so he disappeared like the wind, but I couldn't help but feel uneasy as a voice kept ringing in my heart saying, "So, what are you going to do?"
From that day on, I began searching for a copy of the construction plan for the 1,200m Nagoya inclined investigation shaft of the Japan-Korea Tunnel, which was created in 1983 with the cooperation of Mitsui Construction (now Sumitomo Mitsui Construction), 30 years ago. To my surprise, it was in the possession of the president of Japan Basic Engineering (then deputy general manager of the Technical Headquarters), where I currently work. It was an old, handwritten, yellowed document, 50mm thick. It had been stored side by side on a nearby shelf. Why that happened remains a mystery.
However, Kawasaki Geological Corporation's Sales Manager Oda and Professor Yasuma, who were the first to participate in the marine survey for the Japan-Korea Tunnel and continued to provide guidance thereafter, were his seniors at Tokai University, so I was the only one to know about them, though I never knew them personally. This must have been a blessing.
I sent the plan to the address where the Karatsu office of the International Highway Construction Agency used to be, but it was returned.
I heard that a symposium on the Japan-Korea tunnel was being held at the Kaiun Kaikan in 2010, and I started attending there from then. I attended a lecture in Shinjuku for the second time, and was about to leave when someone called out to me from behind, "Aren't you Takeishi?"
It had been 24 years since I last met him; he was the then Secretary General of the International Highway Foundation.
