To The Park!

(Austin)

April 14, 2016

    On a bright, sunny Thursday after classes had ended for the day, Rachel and I decided to go to a nearby park. I had actually been to this park before, but that was back during the first week or two in Japan, and it was at night, so I didn't really get a good view of it.

    We took a bus to a nearby stop and walked through neighborhood to get to the park. While walking through the neighborhood we saw many farms and greeted a few people with pleasantries as we walked through.

    The park itself is quite large, including a small lake on one side. There is a small river that runs through the center of the park, so the park designers created many bridges to traverse to the different areas. They put particular effort in one bridge, the main white bridge in the center of the park. It gives a feeling of centrality to the area because you can see the white bridge from most parts of the park. There is also a large bamboo forest in the park that we walked through.

    After walking for a while we sat on a covered dock that jutted into the lake. There were many ducks and a swan near the dock. We even saw a beaver! Or was it an otter? I don't remember. The breeze was quite nice under the cover of the dock, so we stayed and talked for a while in the nice weather.

    We decided to head back, walking through the neighborhood again. While we were walking back we saw two highschool boys kidding around like they were going to fight. It was obvious that they were good friends. When we got close and passed them, one of them said hello to me in English, which I responded to him in English and then in Japanese. I went on and asked what year of school he was in. They seemed surprised. We told them that we went to Kansai Gaidai and they were super excited. It seems that Kansai Gaidai is actually pretty famous. We talked in Japanese for a while longer and then headed back.

    After catching the bus, Rachel got off at the school to walk back to the dorm and I headed to the train station to head back to my homestay. The last picture is a shot from the train platform in Kuzuha station, my home station.