Stuffed-eye Sea...I mean, Stuff I See

Here are just some of the things I see on my walks:

(I don't see all of them every day, as they're on different routes!)

Near the "carp gulley" - doggie barking fiercely but wagging his tail happily too. I think he's saying "Morning!  'GOOOD morning' if you're a good guy, and just 'morninggg' if you aren't!"

God makes sure I'm not too lonely on my walks!

The "Whispering Path" leads to the Park.  The large green sign that says 開成山公園 is the sign for the park; if you follow that with your eyes to the white sign with the letters in black saying 開成山大神宮, that's the sign for the buddist temple across the street.  If you follow the red arrow underneath to the left edge of the photo, you'll see an oval wooden sign with white lettering: せせらぎこみち, or "path of whispers", on it.

You'll have to click on the pic to see the enlargement if you want to read these signs.  (I don't know how many of you would be interested, but....)

Koriyama is probably one of the few places in Japan that you can walk downtown to see the bullet train (post, May 11, 2010 "More Urbanish Views") yet walk an hour west to where I live and see people farming right behind their homes.  Like I said before, I had grown so used to seeing this, I had pretty much forgotten about it, then realized it isn't really so common.  I've seen rows of long onions, sometimes rows of carrots, rows of cabbages; there have been eggplants and tomatoes (well, these have been vines, not exactly rows of vegetables on the ground).

God's "produce" comes all over the place...and yes, in very unlikely places, don't you think?

I wonder what this man is planting?

Bordering the north side of part of the Path is the Koriyama Girls' College and high school attached to it.  Why didn't Emily attend this school since it's so close?  Well, they offer courses in music, in nutrition...don't have the nursing program she was looking for.  But the "Center Examination" (a little like the SAT or ACT in the U.S.?) for high school girls in the Koriyama area was held here...so it was a huge advantage for Emily, who could walk there early, calm down, get her mind in "concentration mode", unlike a lot of other girls who had to ride the streetcar/bus for long distances to get there.  (The high school boys' examination was held at a school in Fukushima City, an hour away by streetcar!)

Thank You for the "edge", God--with Emily's 3% chance of getting into S.P.U., she needed all the help she could get-- I guess God knew just how many edges that required!

On one of my later walks, classes were already in session, and a physed class--softball, I think--was out on the grounds, so I decided to get a snapshot.