Off to the dentist's

 To get to my dentist's office in Parktown, I usually walk to Izumi Chuo and then take a bus. Sometimes I walk. It takes just under an hour. On this day I decided on the bus and as I walked to the depot, I saw the gateball players again. Everyone things of gateball as a game for old people and that is the image that I have. However, every once in a while I remember that I am already older than many of the players.

 At Izumi Chuo, I stopped for coffee at Starbucks and took this picture of the pyramid over the stairs leading down to the bus depot.

 I went over to the station building to use the public toilets before getting on the bus and found a large group of women, what my wife and I call "young mothers", women who are in the late 20s or 30s and usually have young children. I never did figure out what was going on. The tables held small packets of various kinds of food and what looked like jewelry and trinkets. While I was standing there, a long line formed behind the woman in the white sweater(?). Most of the women seemed to know each other. It was all very strange.

 My dental appointment was for 2:30 in the afternoon, so I had lunch at the little shopping center nearby. The place is actually a bread shop but they have an all you can eat lunch for 850 yen. There were five or six varieties of bread, two soups, salad fixings, five or six vegetables, spaghetti, rice, and three deserts. It was very good. I particularly liked it because I was able to fill up on vegetables. I am not a vegetarian but I do not eat much meat, no  beef at all. After I ate I walked across the street to a little public park. This was the flight of stairs leading down into the park.

 The park is centered on a small pond. I sat at the picnic bench and drew a couple of pictures of the little structure in the distance.

There were a couple of people sitting on the bench under the roof of the structure.