On the way to the dentist's

 To get to my dentist's office, I take a bus from Izumi Chuo and then walk home afterwards. On this morning I got to Izumi Chuo and found the Vegalta mascot and the office personnel out picking up the trash from the sidewalks. This is something that is usually done by the neighborhood associations. At my apartment complex, the admin people do this for us. Of course, in the case we have to pay a monthly fee for all of the admin services. In regular neighborhoods all the family come out once a month, usually on a Sunday morning and the public areas.

 Near my dentist's there is a small pond and on this day there was a large family of ducks swimming around.

 One of the strange features of the roads in Sendai. This is a T-intersection and there is only one zebra crossing. If you arrive at the far corner on the left, legally you can not cross the road. I have asked a number of people about this and have been told that it is for safety reason. However, they could not explain how it made things safer.

 I stopped at the bread store for a pastry and some free coffee. I think I also bought bread to take home. While I was sitting outdoors enjoying my coffee break, this little sparrow came begging. It hopped around going "peep, peep, peep" until someone gave it some crumbs. I was very surprised at how tame it was.

 Leaving the bread store, I took some back roads home, passing some rice paddies along the way. At this time of year, all that is left in the paddies are some of the stalks. In the spring they will plow these under before flooding the area and planting the new crop.

Next to the paddies was a shed that was being used to store equipment from the farm. I do not know why it is still standing.

Home again and another walk

I had already walked more than 16 kilometers and was getting very tired. My plan was to go to a bus stop that was indicated on my map and take a bus home. However, I discovered that all of the bus routes had been discontinued, presumably because there were no longer any people in the area. So I had to walk an additional three or four kilometers to a train station. After waiting 30 minutes for a train, I was able to go to Sendai station, rather than toward home. Changing to the subway, I took my usual route home, including the 1 1/2 kilometer walk from Yaotome to my apartment.

 This picture was taken in the lobby of the station. The decorations are for the summer festival.

 Two days later I went to Nanakita Park, where I found that the pool had been drained. The large gray area normally has a foot or so of water and a lot of ducks and pigeons.

 I took a long cut home, which gave me a chance to check out how the rice was doing. The quality of the rice this year is supposed to be just a little above average.

 I was very surprised to find this vending machine. It was selling fresh vegetables of all kinds.

Later in the day, my wife and I went to Sendai Station to meet Naomi and Tomone, my daughter and granddaughter. While waiting on the platform, a shinkansen (bullet train) stopped at another platform. It was decorated with a popular cartoon character, a penguin.

Walking home from the dentist's

 For a long time this has been an empty field. Periodically someone did a little work on it, cutting down trees, smoothing out sections, for example, but nothing serious. This time there was a lot of equipment and some serious land shaping was going on. I found a sign that said the city is building a medical center on the property.

 One unique feature of Japanese houses is the sliding doors on which the panels are covered with paper. This is what happens when a house is not lived in or when the family has kids.

 This rice paddy looks a lot bigger than it actually is. It is squeezed in between private homes, but obviously is still being worked.

 This is the rice cooperative. The rice farms band together to sell their crops and to maintain and expand the water system that is absolutely necessary for rice production. The Japanese have been doing this for more than a thousand years and many scholars, both Japanese and foreign, believe that it is the root from which Japanese groupism grew.

 Here are some larger rice paddies. They are next to a main road. There are also paddies on the other side of the road.

This is what the newly planted rice seedlings look like.

Out for another walk

 I went out for another walk. This time I planned to walk west along the northern bank of the Nanakitagawa River and then at the west end of the park turn south and cross the bridge. As I walked along the level, I saw a large number of cars parked on the south bank.

 As I continued walking, I was able to get a better look. It was a gateball tournament. Gateball is  called croquette in the US. It is extremely popular among the older people in Japan. They even have nationwide competitions. I am old enough to join but have no particular interest in doing it.

 After I had turned south and crossed the bridge, I cam to some rice paddies to the southwest.  They had already been flooded and the new crop had been planted.

 If you look carefully, you can see the seedlings in this picture. In a couple of months the plants will be knee high and ladened with grains of rice.

 Just passed the paddies is a construction site. It seems like it has been at least six months since I have been here, but it looks exactly the same. Maybe they stopped work for a while, like they do on the river near my place. I think that they give contracts for different parts of the work to different companies, not just the lowest bidder, so that the money gets spread around.

The trucks that are moving the dirt they remove use this entrance to the area. The two men that are standing there each have a hose with water pumped from the river. As the trucks go out onto the road, they wash down both sides of the truck, paying particular attention to the wheels. The result is that there is no dirt on the road. I should also point out that, in addition to these two men, there is a man from a security company who is directing traffic as the trucks leave. In contrast to what I remember from the US, the civilian cars are given precedence and the company trucks wait for them.

Leaving the river and returning by the main road

 I left the riverside and walked north to the main road that runs east from Izumi Chuo. This area still has large rice paddies, so for those of you who do not know what they look like I have included these three pictures. Above is a  picture of a whole paddy.

 This is what it looks like up closer. During the spring when the rice is first planted, this would be all water but during the later stages of growth the ground is allowed to dry out. This is natural as during the spring time rainy season the low lying areas fill with water and then they dry out during the summer.

 This rice is almost ready for harvest. You can see that each plant has many individual grains. In recent years they have been gradually changing the rice so that the yield is greater and the height of the plants is lower, making them stronger and less susceptible to damage for the typhoons that arrive in the fall.

 On the north side of the paddies there is a temple. The blue area is a tarp that is stretched over a damaged roof.

 In this area the liquification of the ground caused the sewer pipes to rise (the small pieces of dirt and stone went under the pipes pushing them up through the sidewalks). I have no idea how they will repair these. In many places the manhole covers are now as much as a foot (30 cm) above the sidewalk.

I walked over to the temple and discovered that the graveyard was still in disarray. Many of the gravestones had fallen over and were yet to be repaired. I am not sure that this is the specific reason for the delay, but I do know that the necessary cranes to lift the stones back into their proper locations are hard to hire as are the operators. There is so much repair work going on that the all equipment and personnel are in short supply.