Jun 21, 2011

Miyagi Gakuin University and the Sendai Book Club

The weather bureau has forecast that the rainy season will official start in southwestern Japan today. Our weather here in the north is just like the full rainy season - hot and muggy. They are forecasting temperatures above 27C (81F) for the rest of the week and rain every day. The rainy season is expected to officially start later in the week. The official start comes when a set or criteria are met, not just by rain,  heat, and humidity.

Anyway, yesterday I was posting pictures from the Asahigaoka bus depot and had shown the new red pavement on the sidewalk.
 After putting in this section of the red pavement, they cut some rectangular sections into it. I suspect that they will place bumpy yellow tiles in the holes so that people who have problems with their sight can follow the yellow or feel the path with their feet. Such tiles are on most sidewalks in Sendai.
 This is the new red sidewalk as it passes the end of the terminal building.
Arriving at the bus stop in front of Miyagi Gakuin U, I saw a workman standing there carefully eying all the women getting off the bus. I never did figure out why he was there - other than to check out the women, of course. Also the large sign was taped to the end of the entrance to the underground passage that leads to the university side of the road. It says the equivalent of Watch your step! There are no pedestrian lights here so everyone must use the passage. I do not know why the sign was put up. There seemed to be no dangerous places in or around the passage.

The Sendai Book Club
 The Sendai Book Club had not had a meeting since the first earthquake. All of the sites that we use have been closes. However, we decided to have a meeting at a hotel near Sendai Station. Nestled between some buildings I found this little Shinto shrine.
 From the west exit from the station, I walked south and noticed this parking lot. The price is 100 yen for 30 minutes according to the sign.
This is the hotel, the ANA Holiday Inn. The small area beside the building contained many plants and made this corner of the downtown area quite pleasant.
 We reserved a second-floor room with a large table and would have a seven course meal, while we caught up on our experiences during the disaster and discussed the book, Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason, a very dark murder mystery set in Iceland. I enjoyed both the book and the evening. The outside balcony overhangs the planted area in the above picture and was nice but the noise from traffic was distracting so we closed the windows.
This halo hung in the air between floors in the hotel.

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