Dec 3, 2010

Near my home 16


This house is in a rather strange location. The soccer stadium is less than 50 meters to the left. The main road goes over a little bridge that allows an access road to this house and to the ground level of the stadium. Originally there must have been a little valley here. The house is in a quiet location except, of course, on game days, when the loud speakers blare for three hours and the crowds flow around both sides of the house.Turning slightly so that we can see on the level of the main road, we find a Sukiya restaurant. It is one of chain of cheap restaurants that specialize in bowls of rice with stewed thin-sliced beef in a thin soup poured on top and bowls of rice with curry on top. The large building behind it is a discount electronics shop. I sometimes buy small items there, but when I want something more expensive I go to one near Sendai station. It gives points which amount to at least a 10% discount.
This is the entrance to an izakaya which is the next building past the electronics shop. An izakaya is a Japanese style drinking and eating place. This one is unusual because it has a parking lot. Japanese laws about drinking and driving are very strict so anyone who comes here would have to have a designated driver. It is even more unusual because the next building, you can just see the gray rood and pinkish wall, is a police station. By the way, the yellow line on the sidewalk is for vision impaired people. It is yellow to improve visibility and it has very distinctive bumps so even someone who is completely blind can follow the sidewalk. They are all over the city. Also the traffic lights play music so that these people can know when the light is green and it is safe to cross the intersection.
This is the police station. I have only been in there once. On the way home from a night of drinking with my friends (I was walking), I found a wallet. At the next intersection a police car was waiting for the light to change so I knocked on the window with the intention of giving them the wallet. However, it turned out that I had to go to the police station to fill out the paperwork. By doing this, I qualified for about 10% of the money in the wallet. It turned out that the owner was a high school student and there was only a couple of thousand yen in it. I told the police that I did not want any of the reward. When all the paperwork was finished, the two police officer who had brought me to the station gave me a ride home. The next morning we got a call from the owner. He said that the police had told him that he had to call and apologize for causing me trouble, also to offer to bring me the reward money. I thanked him for calling and declined the reward again.

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