Last Saturday, I went to my art class in the morning, the first since the disaster. The NHK Culture Center where we used to go is still closed, so the students got together and for the next two months we are having our classes in the teacher's private studio.
The soccer game ended up a 3 - 3 tie. The home team, Vegalta Sendai, gave up a goal in the lost time at the end. However, in spite of doing exactly the same thing the week before, they remained in third place in the top league, which is a big change from past years when they struggled in the mid levels of the second tier league. This picture shows the people leaving the stadium and heading for the subway at Izumi Chuo, which you can see in the background. A group of my friends planned to meet that night at an Irish bar, the Ha'penny Bridge, which is our usual place to meet.
The Ha'penny Bridge is on the first floor of this building. It is a very interesting place because the owner bought an actual Irish bar in Ireland, took it apart, sent it Sendai, and rebuilt it here. The Japanese carpenters who did the work had a terrible time with it, because much of the work had been done by eye, rather than the careful measurements that the Japanese use. The bluish green things in the road are preventing traffic from passing over the sections of the road that are over the construction work on a new east / west subway line.
This in the Ha'penny Bridge. The woman in the front completed the paperwork to get married only a few days before. She and her husband told us that they were not going to have a traditional ceremony which consists of a wedding in a church and then a hotel dinner with 50 to 200 people. They are a huge outlay of money and these days many people fore-go them. No one in my family had one, either. We thought the money could be better used for other things.
This is some of my friends who were there. The man on the right is the husband of the woman in the last picture.
This is Ian on the right. I have not seen him much this year. Our schedules do not match so we are not walking once a week like we used to. And one or the other of us seems to always be busy when the group gets together.
This shows the back page of the newspaper. They have returned the TV listings to their previous location on the last page. The middle of the paper still has special sections for news related to the disaster and special listings of people who died in the disaster and whose bodies have finally been found. There are still lots of pictures and personal stories inside.
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