Sister, Sister
Did you know that Austin has 10 sister cities (4 in Asia, 2 in Africa, 1 in Europe, 1 in South America, 1 in Mexico and 1 in Austrailia)? Neither did I. Apparently, some even have their own website. Not only that, but ten sisters isn’t enough for us and we’re wooing a city in Turkey this summer.
Has anybody ever travelled to one of these other cities as part of the sister city program?
I was living in Oita prefecture (a prefecture is like a cross between a county and a state) when the sister city delegation from Austin came to Oita City. When I returned to Austin the following year, the Japanese delegation came and I volunteered to help with that. Almost a decade later in 1999, the gates to the Taniguchi Japanese Gardens at Zilker were dedicated. The inscription talks about the lasting friendship between our two cities.