Between Nanakita Koen and home

 After passing under the first bridge, I saw a large number of cars on the other bank. They were parked in the flat area that is next to the base of the bridge.

 With a closer look, I realized that it was a large number of elderly people playing gateball, croquette in English. As I have mentioned before it is very popular and there are fierce competitions, eventually leading to national championships.

 I like walking along here. It is quiet and peaceful with a lot of small birds. For the last couple of years, the sparrows have disappeared, but this year there are a large number of young ones fluttering around. I do not know what the problem was but they seemed to have survived it, at least as a group, just like us humans with the earthquakes and tsunami.

 This is the Jodo Shin Shu temple as seen from the riverside. They have a large bell in the yard and every morning at 6:30 they ring it once. I do not know the purpose but when I am outside where I can hear it (can't hear from indoors), it is a very pleasant sound.

 This is the spot where the surface on the side of the levee collapsed. They covered it and then quickly build a temporary road and work area, but since then they have apparently done nothing more. I suspect that after looking at it, they lowered the priority and are working on other places that could potentially cause more damage. If the situation here changes, they could quickly get to work on it since all the preliminaries are finished.

 These workmen are piling up the concrete blocks that are being removed from the levee surface opposite my condo complex. They have probably removed enough to surface 3,000 square meters. It is going to be interesting to see if they replace them or use them for something else.

 This is where the blocks came from. You can still see some of them on the right, but on the left they have all been removed.

This is under the bridge nearest my home. The reason I took this picture was to show the crushed stone in the middle of the picture (the lighter area). This spot used to be a little lower than the surrounding area and filled up with standing water or mud, making it difficult to walk along the path. Some one has brought a load of crushed stone and filled in the low spot. I am pretty sure that it was not anyone official, but probably someone who lives in the area. That is one of the things I like about Japan. People do things that need to be done without waiting for the government to do it.