nice view

I got a pic form my friends. it was nice view!

*=====* Baby girls: big in Japan

ISEHARA, Japan - In a surprising repudiation of the traditional Asian values that for centuries have put a premium on producing male heirs surveys show that up to 75 percent of Young Japanese parents now prefer baby girls.

Daughters are seen as cuter, easier to handle, more emotionally accessible and, ever more important in this fast-aging society, more likely to look after their elderly parents. Plenty of Japanese are dubious about whether the current crop of female infants will grow up to fulfill such parental hopes Nevertheless, a passion for baby girls has spawned hot-selling books and magazines. Pricey personalized advice services for sex selection and clinics dispensing suppository jelly, - pink to help produce girls or green for boys - for would -be parents trying to conceive the child of their dreams.

Boys don't listen and are hard to raise, said YUMI YAMAGUCHI,27, To improve her odds of conceiving a girl, Mrs YAMAGUCHI scrupulously followed the advice in a popular sec-selection book and took her temperature for an entire year before trying to become pregnant. She sobbed with joy when her daughter, AMI was born 14 months ago. Boys and their mothers seem to have a weak bond, but mothers and daughters stay close all of their lives, she said. She lives in a tiny, two-room apartment in ISEHARA, about 50 kilometers(30 miles) south west of TOKYO. Her husband and his family run a lumber company. Twenty years ago, such couples usually hoped for a boy to carry on the family business and were likely to keep trying until they got one. But Mrs YAMAGUCHI says that she and her husband can not afford a second child, but even if their economy prospects improve, they will try for another girl.

SHIRO SUGIYAMA, chairman of the sex selection study Association of Japan, which has 800 obstetricians as members, estimates that only 2 percent of Japanese women seeking to conceive are taking measures to select the baby's gender. Only their thermometers know for sure, though, because many do not consult doctors on the subject.