Odds and ends

 This is part of the police complex that is across the street from my apartment. They have already torn down one of the buildings, the one that had the most damage during the quakes. This one is now boarded up so it is obvious that they are not using it. The only other multistory building is also closed, so the only thing that is still in use is the low building on the left. It is the storage shed for the motorcycles that are used here for training. I am not sure but I think that this entire complex will be closed soon and the operations moved further out of town. It will be interesting to see what happens to the land. Half of the original land, which held a commercial driver training school, has already been turned into a grade school.

Just around the corner from my condo, a matter of only a couple of hundred meters, is the vast field of wheat. I wonder it they will be able to make a single loaf of bread from the harvest.

 Out to Parktown again to go to my monthly visit with my doctor. Walking back toward GreenMart, where I planned to buy coffee beans, I passed through a park and was pleasantly surprised to see that the fountain was working.

 I stopped at Cybelle, a shop that sells bread and gives you coffee if you want to eat it there. I sat outside and had a couple of bready things with the coffee. It was my lunch. While I was eating, this little guy came begging. It came right up to my feet. A few years ago the sparrows almost completely disappear but now they are back again and the new ones are far less afraid of people than they were in the past.

 In one of the housing areas on my way home, I noticed this little road going into a house that was back off the street. Surprisingly this is in a fairly built up area, not way out in the country.

 A couple of days later, my fellow students, the teacher and I, went out to lunch after my art class. We went into the area where there are a lot of bars and clubs, Kokubuncho, and went to one of the restaurants. I was very impressed by the new, red and white store front. At night it is a bar but it seemed to be closed as we walked by.

This is at the west end of the built up area in downtown Sendai. The road enters a tunnel here that goes under the hills and allows easy access to the areas further inland. The row of trees in the distance is on the property of Tohoku U, the old national university that is now semi-private, where I used to teach until reaching the age limit. I taught there for 10 years on a part time basis.