first goodbyes

I rode with Katie to Gakken-Nara-Tomaigoka again yesterday.  It’s so pretty there.  She is winding down her classes and saying goodbye to her little sweeties and adult students.  Similarly, this is my last day at this AirBnb, which means it’s been a month–sheesh!

You can see in the photo the run-off from the rains as it pours through the water systems down the hills.  Even as we were on the train to Nara, there were clusters of storms hovering over the mountain.

I looked around my neighborhood with a keener eye today.  Only by staying so long can I understand more of its dynamic–working people, warehouses, schools, buildings, bathhouses.  People are constantly on the move throughout the streets and sidewalks.  I wish I could take pictures of the men and women with children on their bicycles, enclosed in their little seats, or perched on back, some of the babies fast asleep.

I stopped at my Family Mart, where my credit card worked!  Maybe it just needed a break, if you know what I mean.  I stopped at Tully’s coffee.  The buildings still look extremely random to my eye; you can’t see it in the picture, but at the bottom left there is a 7-11.

Then I thought about my Orlando neighborhood….my apartment complex, next to a housing development, behind the Winn Dixie that just got its closing orders.  Maybe it looks just as unstructured, just more spread out, the way suburbs are.  Even my house before my apartment–7-11, elementary school, park, neighborhood, sandwich store across the street, each neighborhood with mismatched walls.

Here is my street and the building I’ve been moving in and out of over and over for my first month in Japan.  My building is the tall one with the “TB” poking up–no idea what that stands for.  🙂

There are people working in the warehouses underneath and across the street at all hours of the night.  Here is the school 1 block away, on my way to Katie’s; Japan’s version of an intercity school….the kids are so adorable running around squealing in the courtyard in their navy blue uniforms during recess.

From my 7th floor windows I can see the tallest building in Japan, the one I saw a couple weeks ago in Tennoji, waaaaaay off in the distance.  You can see the busy street and warehouses below my window.

When I look down from my balcony next to the washing machine, there is the roof and porch of a house, sandwiched in between the buildings.

If I look right, I can see the raised highway next to the giant appliance store, LABI.  The tall tan building is the hotel within Namba Parks mall and theatre.

Tonight I will pack up–I’m sure we’ve all experienced the way in which your stuff expands once you let it loose!  I swear I haven’t bought much, but we’ll find out when I try to squeeze it all back into my backpack and bag.  The cheese popcorn, chocolate covered pretzels, goldfish crackers, and hair products I brought to Katie are no longer occupying space at least.  I’m only moving a few blocks away, but there is a different vibe there.  I kinda like my vibe, but I’m sure it’s like Todd said, it’s just because I’m used to it 🙂  Talk to you from the other side of Highway 25!

Photo:  I never did figure out what the giant red squid was about, but I bet I could’ve had some killer tempura octopus