�@ In August, 2003, the International Apiculture Meeting was held in Ljubljana, Slovenija. I went there to make a poster announcement. I was nervous because it was the first time for me to have such an opportunity in a foreign country. I didn't go direct to Ljubljana. I flied to Graz, and then I went to Ljubljana by train.
I took a direct flight of Austrian Airlines from Osaka to Vienna and changed planes to a small, a thirty-passenger aircraft for Graz. Looking outside from the window of the shaking airplane, I was able to see a stretch of pasture.
As the plane pitched badly, we flied over a big massif and arrived at Graz airport (forty minutes' ride from Vienna). The plane glided down on the runway in a large grassland. I headed for Hauptbahnhof by taxi. I found a sushi shop "SUSHI YANN" in the station building.
Frish worked for the Graz university from 1946 to 1950 because the Munich university had suffered war damage.
This time, I did not visit the university because my schedule was tight and it was August. I took a walk on the old street of the town, visited the green garden of Schloss Eggenberg. At a field museum in the suburb of Graz, I had a chance to observe beehives made of straw and huts of bees. I really hope to visit the university next time.
Graz, the old section of the town, remained its beautiful buildings thanks to its lucky escape from war damage. When I was in the courtyard of Landhaus, a brassband was playing at the moment. I was overwhelmed by piles of arms kept in Zeughaus. Schloss Eggenberg had a large green garden with a hill behind and peacocks were playing there. Graz was a small and calm town. Streetcars were running. I felt time went by slowly.

The Austria field museum was in a suburb of Graz (Osterreichsches Freilichtmuseum in Stubing). I hiked from the station about 2km up to the museum under the hot sunlight. Tall goldenrods and huge impatients textories were in bloom along the roadside. Many insects including honeybees were visiting the flowers to take the nectar. In Japan, goldenrods don't flower until the end of September. I thought they bloomed earlier in this country. And honeybees' bodies were black as well as I had seen them in Germany before.
Old private houses stood in a row inside a large premises. It seemed as if they came out from Grimm's fairy tale. The honeybee huts stood between the houses. The beehives made from straw were also there under the eaves of some of the houses. Although there were no honeybees inside, I imagined the old days when people were doing beekeeping right there.

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