My first real walk - still walking

 This is one of the main streets. It leads to an intersection with a main north/south route, an intersection with a lot of stores and banks. Notice how wide the sidewalk is. It could easily be another lane in the road. The roads in this area are interesting, because the newer roads tend to be straight and wide, but the old roads are very narrow, outside of Japan they would be considered to be one lane but here they carry two way traffic.

 This is our local Mr Donuts. Within a kilometer of my apartment, we have all the necessities - Mr Donuts, MacDonalds, Baskin-Robins, 7/11, etc, plus a lot of similar Japanese shops.

 I reached the Nakagawa River and decided to follow the riverbank away from town.

 Japanese construction companies are very good at making temporary roads, a skill that is very useful after earthquakes and floods.

 In Japan, all construction projects must prominently post the information about their permits. The entire wall of workers' shack is covered with such information.

I found this beautiful tree but could not find any place to take a good picture of it. This is the best I could get. Maybe next spring when they are not working on the river, I'll be able to get a better shot of it.

My first real walk

Today my wife wanted to rearrange things that I have no say in - kitchen and the closets, so I decided to get out of her way by going out for my first long walk.

 

 I left our building and walked to the west. At the first corner I turned around and took this picture of our building. The area in the foreground is part of a takubin transshipment point. Takubin is a system for shipping small packages around Japan, quickly and cheaply. When the system first started, it was based on the small shops that sold rice, because they were the only companies that delivered to many homes. Takubin was popular and quickly became much bigger but even today there are still rice stores that are also places where you can take packages for shipment.

 On the same corner there is a curry rice shop. The menu is very short, basically curry rice or curry rice with a hamburger on top. You can also get miso soup and a salad to go with it. Masayo and I ate there once. It was good but the servings were much too big for us. Neither of us was able to finish our meal, even though we had asked for small servings of rice.

 Next to the curry shop is a cake shop. This is part of a chain and my niece says that it is her favorite. We went in and bought a couple of cakes. Everything had a lot of fancy decorations and were very sweet. We probably will not buy too much from there.

 Across the street there is a coin laundry. We will probably wash our rugs there at some point in the future.

 I walked down the side road next to the laundry. Within 50 meters of the main road, I felt like I was in the country. There was a large truck garden. I expect that with ten more years there will be an apartment building here.

The road came to an end at a canal. This picture shows one of the things I really like about Japan. Most waterways have a walkway along them. As you will see, much of today's walk was along side are canal or a river.

Continued tomorrow.

Our apartment building

 One of the things that has been keeping me busy is building book shelves. Here are the parts of two of the shelves - one spread out a bit and the other as they were in the box. They are very well made and the various panels are held together with lots of long screws. We are gradually getting the apartment into some sort of shape and are spending less time each day organizing. However, once my desk arrives, I will have to put it together and then start organizing all my art supplies and remaining books.

This is the view from our front door. The house next door has a very nice garden and the roof of the garage is covered with bonsai. I have seen the man who lives there but I have yet to speak to him.

 This is my front door as seen from the stairwell.

 My apartment is up the stairs on the second floor, right at the head of the stairs. Our mail is delivered to the combination lock secured boxes beside the stairs.

 We live on the second floor in the right hand apartment. The parking space in front of the apartment, where a woman is cleaning, comes with our rent. We don't have a car but it is very convenient for guests. The woman is hired by the building owner to come and clean so we do not have to do it. I expected that we would have to clean on some sort of rotating basis with the other people in the building, but finding there was a cleaner was a pleasant surprise.

 This is the entrance to the building.

 Around the back is a parking area for bicycles and scooters. I do not think that we get either but my wife has mentioned the possibility.

The truck garden across the street is well cared for by this woman.

Out the window and a trip to Nitori

 This is the view out the window by my computer. Apparently the plants on the right, four and a bit rows, are potatoes.

 Looking slightly to the left, you can just see the roof of the Shinkansen station between the two tall buildings. It is a palish green. The small building in the center just passed the parking lot is a private home.

 My brother and sister-in-law came and took us to Nitori to buy more furniture. It is a bit to far to get to unless you have a car. The largest sign says nitori in katakana and the small sign says kagu-interia, which means furniture and interiors. The little booth-like structure on the right is a dry cleaners.

 The inside of the store is huge. This is the first of three floor and is looking in the short direction of the rectangular building.

This is the second floor where we spent most of our money for the day. I bought a desk and bookshelf. My wife bought another bookshelf to use as a cabinet in the kitchen and a footstool to go with our Bali sofa. All of this will be delivered on April 22. Then we went downstairs and bought three color boxes and cushions for the sofa. All in all we spent a little more than we had planned but we got exactly what we wanted.