Continuing my walk

 Continuing past the rice paddy, I found two people working in a small truck garden at the edge of the paddy. I am not sure what they were growing but in the distance on the left you can see a small row of corn.

 This is the combined game center, spa, bowling alley and movie theaters that we used to go to before the quakes. The white signs on the door say that it is closed because of damage from the quakes but give no indication of when, or even if, they will open again.

 This is the inside of the shopping center across the street from the last picture. The previous time that I was here most of the stores were closed and the center was officially closed. Also much of the damage was unrepaired. Now many of the stores are  open and only minor damage remains.

 Here are two workmen repairing damage around the base of the wall of a bookstore. In spite of this work, the bookstore is open and seems to be doing a pretty good business.

 There is, obviously, some problems, though. I have shown this sign before. It shows the names of the stores in this part of the center. You can see that five of the nine stores have not reopened. From what I can remember, the stores that closed were small businesses that could not have been doing a great many sales. One store that I noticed is missing is the one that sold game cards to kids. The stores that remain are a dry cleaners. a beauty parlor, a children's clothing store, and photo studio specializing in children.

 This is in the men's room in the shopping center. This rectangular object is an electric hand drier, the kind that blows warm air on your hands and also shines some sort of disinfecting light on them. There is a sign saying that it is out of service and the reason is that they want to support the effort to reduce the consumption of electricity. This effort, by the way, has been successful. In spite of taking a sizable percentage of the generating capacity off line due to damage from the quake, tsunami, and the nuclear generator problems, consumption never reach 100% of capacity, even on the hottest days of the summer when air conditioning was operating, seemingly everywhere.