Still returning from Parktown

 Instead of going up over the hill and approaching Izumi Chuo from the north like I usually do, I decided to turn right and go down the hill and then approach from the west. I had not been on this road for a long time so it was an interesting walk.

On the way down the hill, near the athletic dome that I showed a few days ago, I found a ramen shop with this picture on the outside of the entrance. The writing is a poem-like composition about how ramen tastes and smells as you slurp down the noodles and the hot soup passes over your tongue and goes down your throat.

When we had a car, we came here quit often, but I have not been here for at least two years. This is a parcel delivery service office. In Japanese the service is called takkyubin. Now that we do not have a convenient way to get here we have the service come to the house to pick up packages. It costs a bit more but is better.

This area used to be a large open field with some woods at the back. A few years ago they cut down all the trees and flattened the land. Now they have built a shopping center.

This picturesque driveway came right out to the main street. I took this picture from the sidewalk. The house at the end was nothing special, just a regular old, cheap building of the type that was built when this area was first opened up for housing.

A little bit further down the road was the rice producer's cooperative. The building on the left is the first of three large temperature controlled storage structures for the rice grown in the area. The building on the right seems to be an administrative space. The wall-less structure in the middle is a store that is only open for a period of a few months around the harvest.

This stele is tucked in the woods beside the coop's land. It is in honor of the Japaneses war dead. Notice that someone has placed fresh flowers on it.

Behind the above stele there is a similar one but even further into the woods.

As I was walking back out of the woods, I noticed that fuji, wisteria, was growing in the trees. It was just past its prime but was still very pretty.