• San Antonio City in Texas has 1,190,000 population and is 8th biggest city in the U.S.A. It is a town of long stay sightseeing place which grows tropical plants. Ten million guests a year visit here. In the hotel deck which I stayed, an old retired man was reading a book in relaxed atmosphere. From the scenery I understood this is long stay vacation area. It is said the beginning of San Antonio City was a Spanish missionary priest made a missionary church in the place of the Alamo today. Refer to the home page of San Antonio City.
  

• One of the reasons, which made San Antonio top sightseeing city in the U.S.A., is the River Walk. Heavy rain in 1921, which killed 50 persons, was beginning. The countermeasure plan was to construct dam, to enlarge river width and to landfill U shaped part of the river. The dam has been constructed in 1927 but the landfilling made a big dispute between business field, which support the filling and redevelopment, and the citizens, which are against to protect nature and wanted to preserve the river. In 1929, The River Walk concept, which was proposed by hometown architecture Robert Hugman, was adopted. It was to construct shops, restaurants and apartments on their bank based upon the concept of a scene of old Spanish towns. It made the river as full player. In 1941, the land improvement plan has finished. On the timing of the world war II, concern to the River Walk faded out. Maintenance of the river and action to make it beautiful have stopped. Highway expansion to suburb made population decrease in downtown and it made the River Walk a bowery and it became a ghost town. The city considered it seriously and adopted a master plan of redevelopment of the Riverwalk named as "Paseo del Rio" or the River Walk in 1963, which was proposed by San Antonio affiliate of the National Architect Association. It started redevelopment of the town. Next year, local citizens of shops near the River Walk organized a private association and it proposed many ideas of redevelopment and the town became active gradually. By the timing of international exhibition in 1968, many hotels around the River Walk such as Hilton were constructed. The exhibition was successful and in 1975 convention center was constructed. Furthermore the city also succeeded to construct complex facility River Center on the land of 4 hectare, into which the river water was conducted, and there are Marriott Hotel begging started in 1988 and having 1000 rooms, commercial establishment, restaurants and a theater in the center.
• San Antonio and Kumamoto-city in Japan made sister-city relationship then Kumamoto introduces San Antonio  in their home page.

• St. Joseph's Downtown Church looks very new to me because we unconsciously compare it with European churches. But it is more than 100-year old. The construction has started in 1868 and today's shape has been finalized in 1898. In 1945, next department tried to purchase this church to expand it but the parishioners were against it then this church was encircled by the department now part of Rivercenter Mall.

• To keep safety, many policemen are patrolling by their own special bicycles. We can walk around the River Walk safely even at night. This area is exception in the U.S.A.
  

Look down from hotel room	View from a bridge	Flowers are beautiful	River turns 90 degree
Hyatt Hotel by the river	River side faces all glasses	Inside is green too	Look out from inside
The scenery is inside building	River has plenty of water	Lots of green make me relax	No brilliant color
Scenery under a bridge	Bridge and road under our hotel	Clock tower across the hotel	Stayed : La Mansion del Rio
Relaxed walkway	Designed road and river	A university across river	Green, water, sunlight
sunlight streaming through leaves	Designed water	Many restaurants by the river	Eat outside
McDonald stands quietly	1898, St. Joseph's Church	Inside looks new	Stained glass, $3,000 in 1902
Big pipe organ	Sightseeing boat	40 minutes a cruise	Like spring water
Oldest district and restaurant	casual walk by the river	scenery of humpbacked bridge	stylish staircase to upper road

2002/08/01