A walk around the river and more

 Japan has a fantastic system for moving ground water around. The Farmers' Cooperatives, local governments and the central government has be working on the system for at least 1,500 years. This picture shows the point at which the drainage from around my apartment complex empties into the river. In the not too distance past (years, not decades), this system was used to provide water for the rice paddies that covered this area.

 There are still farmers in the area, although most are now elderly and gradually selling off their land as they reach the point where they can no longer work it.

 This is the remains of an old dam that was part of the system. Now that the area does not need water for the rice paddies, they have removed the dam, but the bypass that allowed the fish to go upriver and spawn remains. Actually I took this picture to show the building in the background. This apartment building was condemned by the city immediately after the earthquake and remained empty for a year. However, it looks like they have started to repair the damage. Either that or to tear down the building.

 I have shown this building a number of times. It was a game center before the earthquakes and was also condemned. Here they are definitely starting to repair the building, although I do not know where it will become a game center again or something else.

 It was art class day again and downtown I found that they are doing work on the rain roof that covers part of the shopping arcade. It looks like they are repairing quake damage as well as fixing things that have aged.

I walked across town to go to the area around Sendai Station. I followed the arcade the whole way and was surprised by how many people were around. I hope at least some of them were shopping. We need to revitalize the economy and more shopping will obviously help.