Just received this fairly excellent message:

Dear Tempura island friends, lovers, visitors:

We would like to inform you, that after our decision to close Tempura, we were contacted by Linden Lab and made the decision to accept maintenance of our region by joining The Second Life Region Preservation Society provided by Linden Lab.

We have received so many messages from SL residents about closing Tempura and we are very happy that it will exist still.

Please enjoy Tempura sim as you have been in all these years. We would like to express our gratitude to Linden Lab who recognized and decided to keep Tempura as part of Second Life existence. Thank you everyone who loves Tempura!

– Kikunosuke Eel/Tempura Island Team 

P.S. Special Thanks to Mr. Wagner James Au for his support

And thank you, Mr. Eel and team! So that said, click here to teleport to Tempura in all its preserved glory.

This restoral happens two weeks after the blog reported its imminent departure, which strongly suggests the Linden team scrambled to save it after its departure. Last week I had suggested this might happen, while warning that there’s a flip side to preservation:

Even when Linden Lab takes a sim over, that doesn’t mean what’s meaningful about it will continue on. An active user community, first and foremost, brings meaning to the virtual world. 

May that community continue on. Here’s the official announcement: