Japanese Masks

 Standing in line for the bus, myself and one other person making the line, I could see many places that I use frequently: on the far left you can see my dentist, the yellow sign shows where we stop for curry sometimes and where we buy our ground coffee, and on the second floor is my barber.

 I rode the bus to Mirikaroden where I was going to have my exercise class. In the waiting area, they were having an exhibit of the masks that are used in classical Japanese theater. I think these came from both Noh and Kyogen. These two are the bad guys. You can tell because of the dark colors. The red faced one looks a lot like a Christian image of the devil.

These white faces are good guys. The one in the middle has a moveable jaw so that it can move while the actor is speaking.

These masks are considered very valuable and are passed down  for hundreds of years, which explains the lack of paint. New masks are made but often they are copies of older ones.

Unusual things

 This is at the end of the station building. It looks like an old style mailbox and the large letters say post. But the smaller writing indicates that this is a place where people can leave bad written material, in other words pornography and what are often called men's magazines.

 Architecturally, this is rather a mess, at least to me, it is. The stairs, both those on the left and those across the street lead up to the Shinkansen station, which is actually across the street from the Station Building. The structure on the top left is the bottom of a pedestrian bridge.

This box is very unusual. I don't know if it is a trial or if there are others around Japan that I have just not seen. The box belongs to Sagawa, a transportation company that also deals in parcel posts. According to the white instruction signs, you can have Sagawa pick up something at your home and they will deliver it here and place it in one of the compartments in the box. They will email a combination that will allow you to open the box. When we travel in Japan, we almost always send our luggage to our destination by takubin, parcel post, the day before we leave. It costs less than a couple of thousand yen (about US$20) and it makes the trip much more pleasant.

Pay parking

 This is off to the left of the bus depot. The elephant in the window is a relatively new addition and it is some kind of kids' center. Not having a kid, I have never bothered to find out anything about it. The row of bicycles belong to kids who attend a prep school, a juku, that is around back. This building contains a number of different places, next to the kids' center is a very good restaurant, specializing in pizza, there are a couple of bars and a place to have shiatsu/hari (pressure and needles on specific points on the body to relieve pain and other symptions).

 The station building has a small parking lot. It holds about 20 cars. There is a larger commercial lot on the southside of the station on the same street as the kids' center. The system here is interesting. You can see the plate on the left side of each parking space. When a car wheel passes over the plate, it rises as you can see on the right.

To lower the plate, you have to go to this machine and get a card which when reinserted along with some money will allow you to leave. The charges are calculated by the half hour.

Still in the bus depot

 This is another side of the board with the bus schedules that I showed yesterday. This one has information about events and things in town. My Go club schedule is posted here on the top right.

 Beside this bulletin board, there was a school girl studying while she waited for a bus. In Japan, all schools from the seventh through the twelfth grades require the students to wear uniforms and to carry their books in a briefcase. This young lady is using her briefcase as a desk. School texts in Japan are all paperbacks that the student buys and keeps.

Standing at a bus stop in the terminal, I can see across the parking lot (right) and taxi stand (left). On the far side there is the entrance road with oneway traffic moving to the right. Directly in front of me the traffic moves to the left. If you look at the horizontal green sign on the building, you can see the English words Honda Dental Clinic. This is where I go for dental care. A few days ago I went for a checkup and had my teeth cleaned. With the comprehensive health insurance which is compulsory in Japan, I paid 460 yen or US$4.60.