I took my grandma bike today for a ride around Nisshin, to the out-outskirts. Besides the excellent exercise (the standard Japanese bike has only one gear), it gave me another chance to see a part of Japan that the school will never take us on a field trip to.

Even though the area where I live is considered to be country by the natives here, I think just 3-5 km off in the back roads and I was able to see real country. It’s funny to realize that even though I’ve gotten used to (and perhaps it’s simmered a little in the months since I’ve been here) all of the staring, when out in the country everybody tends to look. The streets barely have a place for bikes to ride, many of the intersections don’t have a traffic light, a lot of the houses are older and appear unmaintainanced; while there’s luxury cars parked in front of a lot of homes, buses regularly on the streets, and other things that don’t quite appear to fit in. There were also a lot of construction trucks hauling dirt or equipment on the roads today. It still kills me that everywhere I’ve been so far, I’ve seen that Japan refuses to bury their power lines, only to leave them in hugely-wadded knots above the roads.

My main purpose going out was to photograph Iwasaki Castle (岩崎城) and a sports park in the town of Iwafuji (総合運動公園) but after getting to the park I decided to get lost on purpose on my way home to discover things. Pictures are online.