A new way home

 I left the art exhibit and immediately turned north on a narrow side street. As always the street was lined with telephone poles and power lines. I read an article on the internet that claimed that they had started putting all the telephone and power lines underground in Tokyo, but I really doubt this, especially after the experience gained in our earthquakes and the predictions of another strong one in the Tokyo area. The problem is that underground breaks in the lines are hard to find and even harder to repair. After the quakes, all over the city you could see crews climbing every pole and testing the connections, repairing and reconnecting as necessary. If everything had been underground, this would have been an even more difficult project.

 A fence had something painted on it, but I could not figure out if it was supposed to be representational or abstract art. In any case, to me, it appeared to be simply a long thing yellow blob.

 This building, the one with a sign on the roof, is a funeral home. The design on the front face made it stand out from the rest of the buildings.

 This building was very thin. It could not have been more than one small room wide and there was no room for more than one very small apartment on each floor. As I looked at it, I shuddered to think what it must have been like to be on the top floor during the earthquake.

This building, with the key-shaped sign on the left side, is the place where we have to go if we need a new key for our apartment. Our condo administrative office, keeps track of how many keys there are for each apartment and, if we want an additional one (both of my kids have one), we have to go to that office, which is on our compound, and get some paperwork, which we bring to this store. It takes a few days to get a new key because they are of the most advanced design and are basically impossible to pick.