In my neighborhood

 The rich guy's house is disappearing rapidly. The large building behind and to the right of it is where they are taking down what used to be a police office building.

 Three teenage boys fishing

 More of the riverbank work but on the side opposite my condo.

 This empty lot used to be a fairly large apartment building that was made unlivable by the earthquakes.

 More riverbank work. Here they seem to have finished the bank and are in the process of removing the coffer dam. My condo is across the river in the distance.

Looking back on the site in the previous picture.  If the bank had actually given way, the apartment building would have tipped and become impossible to live in.

Still at Zen'oji

 This is the front of the main building. There is another incense burner on the left. On the right  is a sign saying that this is the entrance to the meeting. Apparently there was going to be some sort of ceremony later in the day.

 Unrepaired damage from the earthquakes.

 Two large rocks are part of the garden that borders the path to the entrance.

 Back at the bottom of the stairs again. I looked at the old stone structure. Behind the bas-relief of a Bosatsu there was another rough sculpture that has a smiley fact and a cap but also looked suspiciously like a phalic symbol.

 Between the temple and the graveyard, I found another place with unrepaired earthquake damage.

I turned south and walked away from the main building, eventually finding another gate that marked the outer edge of the temple area.

Out for another walk

 This is the entrance to a house that I pass on my way to Izumi Chuo. The house is nothing special, old post WW2 Japanese one-story building that is cold in the winter and hot in the summer. But I really do like the gate.

 I started out for a walk. I planned to walk to the bridge to Yaotome and then turn right and follow the river to the bridge on the ByPass road, cross that and then return home. The first thing I was as I walked along our side of the river was this man fishing.l

 These flowers were in full bloom and very intense.

 On the other side of the river, two men were getting ready to start fishing.

 Many of the houses on the other side were destroyed in the the earthquakes and were torn down. Now they are starting to build replacements.

 This is the foot path along the riverside. In this spot it is badly damaged and I expect that they will eventually repair it. All the deep cracks allow rain water to get inside the levee and weaken it.

 This is the place where they are reconstructing the riverbank. My apartment complex is in  the background.

A little further on, I came to a site where there used to be a tall apartment building. It was condemned and removed. If this was the usual type of condo, the owners will eventually rebuild the structure. At present there is still a shortage of labor and supplies, so reconstruction is slow.

More random pictures

 These days my activities are very repetitive. I go to school on four days a week, pretty much stay home resting for two days (I am very tired from my teaching schedule and the stress from March and April), and then go to art classes or shopping or rest on the last day. I carry my camera in my pocket and take pictures of anything interesting that I notice but they are not necessarily connected for more than a couple of shots.

This first picture is an example of one of these sudden things popping up. I was walking along the riverside walkway when I heard a strange noise. I looked around and could not see what was making it. The noise sounded like a motor of some kind but what kind I could not tell.

Then I looked up and saw a blimp. I have not seen one in years so it was a pleasant surprise One of my earliest memories is of going up in a blimp during WW2. It was patrolling the sea off the coast of Massachusetts, looking for German submarines. My father was in the US Coast Guard and talked the pilot into taking us up for a ride.

 This is something that we are beginning to see all over the city. The series of earthquakes has separate blocks of pavement and concrete and in the small space that this created plants are starting to grow. This is obviously going to enlarge the spaces as the roots start to expand. I expect that over the next few years we will find that much of the minor damage becomes more important. Also notice all the cracks on the surface of the road.

 This is what used to be the figurine store. It has been repainted and there is a large sign in the window (behind the tree) saying that the store is available for renting.

 This nearby billboard also reflects the economic condition. There is no ad on it, but it has been repainted and a small sign posted on it saying that it is available.

 This is the billboard from the other side. The old figurine store is directly behind it and the store on the right which is between them is also empty and for rent.

This is an auto dealership near Tohoku Gakuin U that is finally getting the damage repaired. It has been open but parts of the building were obviously damaged.

At Asahigaoka

 On Thursday mornings I take a 7:35 bus from the Asahigaoka Bus Depot to Miyagi Gakuin U. I get to the depot at about quarter past seven. On this morning the waiting room was completely empty. It did not stay that way long as students for one of the local private k-12 schools have a bus at 7:30. I really do not need to get there this early but I like to take the first bus, because the subway is not yet crowded, nor is the bus. If I go later, the subway cars are completely full and the bus has enough students that I would probably have to stand. Also, getting to school early is not bad since I can sit in the teachers' lounge, drink coffee, and get ready for the day or listen to my iPod or read a book. It is quiet and pleasant.

 This is the Seinen Bunka Center, covered with scaffolding and gray tarps. I wonder if the Center asked for the gray tarps so that it would not be so obvious how much work needed to be done. This is the Center where the Sendai Book Club meets. There are also a couple of concert halls where local groups put on concerts and plays.

 This is one of the outside walls of the Center. One section is completely covered and the remainder is missing many individual tiles, especially at toward the top where the movement during the quakes was the greatest.

 The first time I came here after the quakes, these blue tarps were already in place. Now they have been reinforced with slats of wood to keep the tarps from blowing away. The wall was fairly badly damaged, judging by what I initially saw. The repair work is probably being held up for one of two reasons: [1] the insurance claims have not been settled year, for example, it may not be clear whether the wall is city or private property; [2] the construction companies are all too busy and this project is on a list somewhere to be completed when the resources are available.

This is the part of the Center that faces the bus depot. There is a restaurant inside the first floor windows that I sometimes eat in before the Book Club meetings.

In the park near my condo

I have had a very busy two days. The day before yesterday, Wednesday, I got up at 4 a.m. and left home around 5:30. After walking to the Yaotome Subway station I took a train to the Kita Sendai Station, where I met Ian for a walk around Shinrin Koen, the park that we have been walking in for a few years. After returning to Kita Sendai, we stopped at our favorite Mr Donuts for coffee and donuts. Ian had to leave earlier than usual and, as we were saying goodby on the sidewalk outside, I noticed that the destination of the bus standing at the bus stop was Miyagi Gakuin University. So, I quickly hopped on and went to school, getting there before 9 a.m. This was a bit of a problem because my class did not start until 2:10 in the afternoon. However, I found good ways to spend the day. Much of the time was used trying to figure out the solution to a problem we are having with the computerized listening program. I had lunch with one of the Japanese teachers and used most of the remaining time to listen to a recording of The Odyssey. My classes were over at 5 and I got home about 6:15, a more than 12 hour day.

I have a first period class on Thursday so I leave about 6:45. The Rainy Season has started and they were forecasting very heavy rain so I decided to stay at school, leaving for my evening class late in the afternoon. A very enjoyable discussion with my friend John, followed by lunch together, occupied the morning and early afternoon. I spend the rest of the afternoon sitting in the air conditioned teachers' lounge reading a Japanese children's book about Walt Disney. About 4 I took a bus and subway to Tohoku Gakuin U's Tsuchitoi campus and again sat in the teachers' lounge, where I ate the fried chicken, rice, and vegetable box lunch, bento in Japanese, that I had bought in a local supermarket. Class was over at 7:30 and a very tired I got home a little after 8.

On my way to school in the morning there was an earthquake which, although it was large in terms of magnitude, was far enough away that I barely felt it. I was walking along the riverside at the time and was not even sure that it was a quake. Unless a quake is very strong they are not particularly noticeable if you are moving. On my way home from my last class, there was another quake. I was in the underground Tsuchitoi Subway station and again barely felt it. I was sure it was a quake because a sign that was securely attached to the ceiling started moving. Both quakes were quite large in terms of magnitude, but nothing special in terms of the Japanese Shindo system that quantifies the actually movement at each spot on the ground. They were both Shindo 4 on a scale of 1 to 7 (no decimals). This is the strongest quake that does not cause damage, although a few objects may fall over.

This is outside my condo. The ground used to be completely level here. Now, the entire area above the drain has sunk, some of it more than 50 centimeters. I took the picture as I was leaving for a short walk in the park that is next to my building and along the river.

I showed this before. The slanted portion of the facing along the river bank slide down toward the river during the quakes. I noticed that since the major quakes this section has slide even farther toward the river, opening up a large gap between the path and the siding.

This area is a popular fishing spot and the man on the other side of the river was fishing. The river supports populations of various species of fish at different times of year, so I do not know what he was hoping to catch.

On the other side of the river there is a large section that collapsed during the tremors. Very quickly it had been covered with blue tarps, but now there are sandbags neatly placed to keep the tarps from blowing away.

A house on the other side of the river was having the roof replaced.

In the large flat area of the park, some of the local boys were having a baseball game.

 One common feature of Sendai parks, one that makes baseball and other games difficult, is that the grass is usually mowed on twice a year or at most three times. You can see in this picture that it looks more like an empty lot than a nicely trimmed park.

Miyagi Gakuin University and the Sendai Book Club

The weather bureau has forecast that the rainy season will official start in southwestern Japan today. Our weather here in the north is just like the full rainy season - hot and muggy. They are forecasting temperatures above 27C (81F) for the rest of the week and rain every day. The rainy season is expected to officially start later in the week. The official start comes when a set or criteria are met, not just by rain,  heat, and humidity.

Anyway, yesterday I was posting pictures from the Asahigaoka bus depot and had shown the new red pavement on the sidewalk.

 After putting in this section of the red pavement, they cut some rectangular sections into it. I suspect that they will place bumpy yellow tiles in the holes so that people who have problems with their sight can follow the yellow or feel the path with their feet. Such tiles are on most sidewalks in Sendai.

 This is the new red sidewalk as it passes the end of the terminal building.

Arriving at the bus stop in front of Miyagi Gakuin U, I saw a workman standing there carefully eying all the women getting off the bus. I never did figure out why he was there - other than to check out the women, of course. Also the large sign was taped to the end of the entrance to the underground passage that leads to the university side of the road. It says the equivalent of Watch your step! There are no pedestrian lights here so everyone must use the passage. I do not know why the sign was put up. There seemed to be no dangerous places in or around the passage.

The Sendai Book Club

 The Sendai Book Club had not had a meeting since the first earthquake. All of the sites that we use have been closes. However, we decided to have a meeting at a hotel near Sendai Station. Nestled between some buildings I found this little Shinto shrine.

 From the west exit from the station, I walked south and noticed this parking lot. The price is 100 yen for 30 minutes according to the sign.

This is the hotel, the ANA Holiday Inn. The small area beside the building contained many plants and made this corner of the downtown area quite pleasant.

 We reserved a second-floor room with a large table and would have a seven course meal, while we caught up on our experiences during the disaster and discussed the book, Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason, a very dark murder mystery set in Iceland. I enjoyed both the book and the evening. The outside balcony overhangs the planted area in the above picture and was nice but the noise from traffic was distracting so we closed the windows.

This halo hung in the air between floors in the hotel.

More about Miyagi Gakuin U

 Still at the Piano Pond, I looked down and saw this sad face begging for food. I was very sorry that I did not have anything to give to this fish.

 The waterfall at the end of the pond and the 'keys' which form a walkway across the pond to provide access to the grassy area in the middle from the paved walkway.

 Near the Piano Pond, is this fountain and rose trellis.

 On my way up to my classroom, I looked out the window and realized that the work on the school's coffee shop was in its final stages.

 After teaching a class of two graduate students, I have a conversation class with about 20 second year undergraduates. They are a good class, loud but they stay in English and their fluency is improving rapidly.

 The next morning on my way back to Miyagi Gakuin U, I saw that they had almost covered the house in Yaotome with blue sheets. This is the house that had lost a lot of tiles off the roof and had had damage to the walls. The building going up behind it is a new condo.

 At the Yaotome subway station, I noticed a ladder go up to the roof. I got my camera out just in time to see a workman disappear onto the center of the roof over the tracks.

Reaching Asahigaoka, I discovered that they have finished repaving part of the sidewalk outside the bus terminal. As they are doing in many places in Sendai, both sidewalks and roads, the pavement they are putting in is red. I do not know if this is cheaper or considered a safety feature.