Hachisaka Jinja

 My goal for this walk, the Hachisaka Jinja (hachisaka means eight hills), is at the top of the hill nestled in the trees.

 The entrance is from the street. At the very top of the hill, the roof of the shrine is visible through the trees.

 The stone lanterns at the bottom of the hill are new, if my memory serves me right. They also look new and do not appear to be at all weathered.

 The solid back sides of the lanterns have bas-relief carvings of various animals.

 I could not tell whether the animals were real of mythical.

The view from the top of the stairs must have been nice when the area was completely covered with rice paddies. However, now the first field across the street has become a junk yard for old cars.

Still walking - my goal is a hill top shrine

 These fields will soon be planted with rice. After they are plowed, they will be flooded and then the rice sprouts that are currently growing in greenhouses will be planted. The harvest will be late in the summer.

 The last time I came by here, a couple of years ago, this was an empty field. Because of all the people whose homes were destroyed by the tsunami and quakes moving to Sendai, there is a real housing boom.

A lot of different stuff

 This is the police training ground that is on the north side of my condo complex. The motorcycle police come here to train. In Japan these police officers are know as shirobai, shiro from shiroi or white and bai from baiku for motorcycle.

 Here is one of the trainees going through an obstacle course.

 After one of my art classes, a group of us went out for lunch. After we ate we were waiting for the elevator on the third floor and I looked out the window and noticed the earthquake damage on the building next door.

 In a yard near my dentist's office, I found this metal sculpture of a flock of birds. If it were mine, I would place it in a different location, one with a background that made the sculpture stand out rather than getting lost in the plants like this.

 After my dental appointment, I decided that I would walk across the new bridge over the expressway and visit a shrine that I knew about. In this picture the bridge is directly ahead. I had previously come down these stairs the last time I had used the pedestrian bridge that I planned to use to recross the expressway.

This is the view from atop the bridge. In the distance in the middle, you can just see a little bit of the expressway.

Me and other stuff

 The line of grass that snakes through the center of this picture is the remains of a deep and wide crack in the ground from the earthquake. It has now completely filled in through natural processes and seems to be a great place for grass to grow.

 This drainage ditch survived the earthquakes without damage. Of course, the reason for this is rather obvious.

 The cherry blossoms will soon be out. The buds as shown here are getting ready to bloom.

 

The Seiyu supermarket next to my condo complex is open again but most of the small stores have closed. Happily, however, the 1,000 yen barber shop, now named Cut 1000, has reopened. All they do is cut your hair and then vacuum clean your head, no shampoo, no shaving, no extras at all. If you want the extras, you have to pay between 3,000 and 4,000 yen. Since the old 1,000 barber closed after the quake, I have twice gone to a regular barber who gives a huge discount for seniors. The only problem is that his haircuts are lousy, so I am very happy to have a cheap place to go again.

 This is me when I went to Seiyu.

 This is me after I left Cut 1000.