Almost home

 As I walked along the path behind the school, I saw the end of a physical education class. Notice that the kids are wearing hats, some red and some white. This is a good example of what I have pointed out before, the colors used by the two sides in an old civil war are still used to designate sides in activities. Of course, there is no longer any killing battles involved, but it extends a long tradition.

 In many homes, rather than using curtains, the widows will be shaded by sliding panels that are covered in a special heavy paper. However, if you have children or just wait too long, this is what happens to them. The shoji paper is easy to acquire as is the glue, however, some people use the old fashion rice flour and water glue.

This is the river nearest my apartment. It is at the edge of the large park where I play ground golf. The tree in the center is a cherry tree and it was extremely beautiful when it was in full bloom during the spring.

Still along the river

 This is a dam that can be raised during periods of heavy rain to prevent flooding. The light blue part can be rotated so that the right side becomes the top. This creates a pool about a meter and a half deeper than normal. While the pool fills, the water downstream (to the right) has a chance to clear out. By carefully timing the raising and lower of these dams (there seems to be one at least every kilometer), the water level can be controlled and a lot of flooding can be prevented.

 This is what happens to many stolen bicycles in Japan. They are stolen and the thief rides it somewhere and then disposes of it if possible.

Rather than walk on the road, I decided to walk on this foot path that runs along the edge of a school. I was a bit surprised by the little orchard of fruit trees, something I have not seen in my walks around here.

Riverbank construction

 Here is a closeup of the the metal wires that hold the concrete blocks in place. Each of the wires is about a quarter of an inch in diameter.

 This is the way the riverbank looks now. It is not very picturesque but it will certain decrease the damage during future floodings. The really long range weather forecasts, years, not months, suggest that we will have increasing amounts of sudden heavy rain that will completely overwhelm the drainage systems.

Moving away from the river and into a housing area, I noticed some definitely non-Japanese looking apartments on the far side of a park containing a bright blue slide.

More along the river

 This is the riverbank and you can see, right in the middle, a bunch of broken branches that were deposited there a couple of days ago when the currently high water was a meter or more higher.

 I walked by a school and found that they were building a new building on the grounds. I couldn't tell what they are going to use the building for when it is finished.

This is the new banking that they have installed along the river. You can see the water at the top. The things that look like stones are actually concrete blocks. If you increased the size of the picture, just to the right of the long concrete brace you could see think metal wires that tie each of the blocks to the ones around it. Even if flood water gets underneath the banking, it should hold together.