Walking again

 As the riverside path nears the ByPass bridge, it becomes overgrown with grass, other plants, and spiders, so I turned away from the river and took the roads through a housing area where I found this rather surprising sight. A small lot of land, actually a house lot was divided in two. One half held a small garden, including the corn that you can see in the picture, and the other half was a storage area for smallish power tools.

 I finally reached the ByPass, Route 4. The ocean is about 13 kilometers away, on the other side of the hills.

I turned right on the ByPass and started walking away from home. The sign over the entrance of this empty lot says that it is a gift center. The building that you can see under the sign is at least 50 meters away and on another piece of property. It looks like a private home. The gift center building has obviously been torn down.

 This is one of the things I like about living in Japan. It is safe enough that this company is storing cases of beer outside in a little roofed over area. You can see them through the break in the hedge.

 I soon turned off the ByPass. It is noisy and smells bad. I walked a couple of kilometers south, still going away from  home. It was a house area with both apartment buildings and private homes. I finally found a large park and, since I had decided to visit a temple that is on the other side of the park, I decided to walk through it rather than around it. I followed some sort of access road that went steeply downhill.

At the bottom of the hill I found a large pond with a bunch of men fishing.

Walking along Route 4, the Sendai ByPass

 This store sells fishing equipment according to the sign. The building is about 14 kilometers from the sea but it is on a route that many fishermen would take to reach the ocean.

 Route 4 is the home to many car dealerships, especial foreign. This is a Volkswagon dealer.

 Across the road is an Audi dealer.

 Just down the street is Book-Off, a store that buys and sells used books. Of course, comic books are included and are the largest selling items.

 In these hard economic times, many of the stores have closed. This used to be a ramen shop. It has been closed for at least a couple of years and is slowly falling to pieces.

Across the street is a large empty building, but this one is being kept up by the owner apparently in the hopes that someone will rent it soon.