Odds and ends

 Almost back to Izumi Chuo, I pass a pet hospital. It is one of the more interesting buildings in the area.

 The buses used to stop next to the station but drivers waited in the same place to pick up people from the subway, so there as a lot of congestion. They solved the problem a few years ago by building a tunnel from the subway station to the next block north and then rebuilding the road so that there is  space for private cars as well as a bus stop. People still try to wait by the station, but they installed a metal fence so most people now use the official waiting area. These are rather stylish seats for people who are waiting to be picked up. The structures are stone but the seat itself is wood.

 This is an elevator down to the tunnel.

 The next day I went to Tohoku Gakuin U to teach and found students using the temporary stairs that allow them to bypass the place where the hillside collapsed.

 They were also working repairs to that hillside.

 At the little park at the intersection of the road to my apartment complex and the main east-west road a work crew was cutting the grass and trimming the trees and bushes. The building on the left is a public toilet and the one in the background is part of the shopping center.

 This is the newly completed pedestrian walkway at the Asahigaoka bus center.

A long stretch, about 200 meters, is covered with flowers that have either been planted there by the neighbors or have escaped from the gardens on the inland side of the levee.