Jan 21, 2011

A new walk around the neighborhood


A few days later I walked around the neighborhood again. However, this time I went clockwise, walking east on the main road and then turning a crossing the bypass bridge. While I was still on the main road, I passed a new ramen noodle shop. It had a long line of people waiting to get in. This is probably something that is unique to Japan. People wait for hours to get into a noodle shop, but totally ignore other ones. Some of them are truly better than others, but they are not necessarily the most popular. According to the sign, this one is part of a chain so I doubt that it is anything special, other than being new and different.
This is after I turned the corner and was walking south on the bypass road. It is an apartment house with 18 little apartments. The people who live in this sort of place tend to be young people, students or kids supporting themselves through part time jobs. Also some of them are rented to working men who have been transferred away from their home towns. This is common in Japan and the wife and kids usually remain in the family home so that the kids can continue in school without having to transfer (a problem for various reasons).
This is what the front of the building looks like. One of the doors in each pair leads to a downstairs apartment and the other to the upstairs.
A hundred meters or so past the apartments, I came to a little farm, next to the river (on the left)

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