Walking home from Miyagi Gakuin University again

 I left the park and entered the bus depot to take my usual bus to Miyagi Gakuin U. While I was waiting, I saw a good example of one of the features of Japanese life. There is no preventative maintenance here. They just use things until they fall apart and they get a new one. This bus is losing paint but nothing is being done about it. It will not be long before the side is in such bad shape that they will have to scrap the bus. I remember when I first started working here. I tried to get my boss to do some simple maintenance around the building, but he could not understand the need for it. A couple of years later we had to have a major renovation project, which could have been easily prevented by some inexpensive and simple, but timely, repairs.

 When I got to school, I discovered that they had hung a Christmas wreath on the gate post at the main entrance.

 After my class was over at 10:10 a.m., I decided to walk home again. I planned to turn right at the gate again, but instead of following the Kanjosen all the way to Yaotome, I would turn off and follow the little river, which is a much more pleasant walk during the daytime. As I walked down the hill, I notice this survey marker embedded in the sidewalk. The plate, below the circle with the cross hairs, contains the name and telephone number of the group responsible for the upkeep of the marker.

 At the corner at the bottom of the hill, there is a used car dealer. It has many more cars than before and they now go up into the woods behind the building.

 This house is relatively new, being built just a few years ago. By Japanese standards it is really huge. I think that the little group of houses all belong to people form the same family, the ones who grow the rice in the paddies on both sides of the road.

 After turning off the Kanjosen, the first large building is an old people's home. From the ads that appeared when it was first opened, it seems to be a private nursing home.

 Across the street there is a small group of buildings contain medical facilities. This is a nose and throat doctor. There is also a pharmacy and a doctor.

This is the end of the nursing home. The building sticking up over the trees on the left is one of the buildings on the Miyagi Gakuin U campus. I think this is part of the attached high school.