Trips into Sendai

 I went into Sendai and had lunch with my friend Keith. Afterwards, I decided to walk home. On the way I saw this display in a store window. It is a special arrangement with plants and symbols of the New Year.

 This building is a  police substation. Almost every substation has at least a second story with bedrooms and showers so that the station can be manned overnight if necessary.

 A little further up the road  I came to this construction site. The last time I came by here, only a few weeks ago, there was a large building on this corner. Motorbikes like the one in the foreground are very common. People whose job requires them to move around town a lot, even postal workers, use them for transportation.

 I passed a store that sells Japanese dishware and thought that the New Year's flower arrangement was very nice.

This large for-some-reason-out-of-focus building is a kaikan, a place where you can rent rooms for parties. Japanese people typically do not entertain in their homes. They rent a room with comes with food and drink and have the party there. Bonenkai and shinnenkai, year forgetting and New Year parties, for larger groups is typically held in a place like this. This particular kaikan is owned by a company that produces sake, Japanese rice wine, so most parties have their sake, beer and whiskey as the drinks.

 When I had almost reached home, I stopped on the bridge to Yaotome and watched the work on the levee. The reconstruction is progressing rapidly and should be done in another month or so.