This time again, we had honor of receiving various VIP's for ceremonies : from China, Mr. C.M. Han, general manager of COSCON Ship Management Company and Ms. Y.F. Lu of China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company ; from Hong Kong, Mr. G. Chen, deputy general manager of COSCO International Ship Trading Co., Ltd., Mr. H. Chung, senior officer of Newbuilding Department and Mr. Chong from the financier, Société Générale Asia Limited ; and from our country, 3 supervisors, Mr. Z.Q. Fan, Mr. Z.Yang and Mr. Y.F.Yu ; and finally, but not least importantly, Mr. T. Mabuchi, vice president of Nissho Iwai Corporation and Mr. Y. Kamioka, Genearal Manager.

At the begining of evening party before the delivery day, we arranged "Kagamiwari" performance following Japanese tradition. You don't know it? Okay, please look at the photo below : you see standing VIP's hold a wooden mallet in their hands and below is a cask of sake. When the person in charge (Mr Irahara, our chairman & CEO for this time) shouts "E-I-E-I-O!!", the VIP's crack the cask open with their mallet, and then, all the attendants share the same sake filled inside the cask. This is a Japanese custom you may see only at very special celebrations. Curious, isn't it?

In the next morning, under a cloudless sky, the youngest sister ship was named "COSCO KIKU" by Mr. C.M. Han. After a solemn but heart-warming ceremony where the container carrier and her crew had the blessing from all the attendants, the vessel slowly sailed out to join COSCO's refrigerated container service between China and Japan called Green Express.

Lunch party was held at a hotel facing the Kanmon Channel. We were deeply impressed by the speech of Mr. Han who kindly said he did not take this vessel for a usual container carrier but a brilliant piece of technical work that only Kyokuyo was able to produce. We felt all our efforts were rewarded.

Just a while after the party was ended and all the guests left the hotel, we could see COSCO KIKU silently passing through the channel in direction of her home port. It was really a nice epilogue that made us even more happy. For shipbuilders as we are, it is just good to see our vessel is sailing.

We would like to thank Messrs. COSCO and our other customers who make us this happy. We sincerely wish the shipowner good luck and prosperity with our ships.