Neighborhood Hirakata

Currently I reside in Higashiyama with my homestay family.  Right across from our house is a park that is used very regulary, especially on the weekends.  I would just have to walk to the nearby corner, twenty feet away and await for the signal to turn green for me.  Once I cross the street, I am right in the park.  Typically, when I'm coming home from class I see junior high and high school kids practicing either baseball or soccer.  Below is a picture of one of the fields that gets used for practices as well as games.

  Then there are the families that take thier little children or pets and let them roam around the park to let out some energy.  On the weekends though, the park gets especially busy.  My window would be open and I could always hear the boys yell and do their chants as they run thier laps around the park.  This occasionally gets pretty annoying when I have to study.  A five minute walk from my house is an onsen.  Every night people flock to the onsen to relax, more so on the weekends.  Then there are the rice fields.  There are several big plots of rice fields that are intertwined in Higashiyama.  Below is a picture of the big rice field that is about three minutes away from my house by bicycle.  Almost every morning I see one or two people tending the fields.  Seeing these rice fields everyday reminds me of when I was younger when I lived in Aomori prefecture because I lived next to rice farms.

Impression of Japan

This was not my first time coming to Japan.  I had lived in Japan for three years back in the early 1990's, so I want some what familiar with my surroundings.  On top of that, my Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother on my Dad's side of the family came over from Hiroshima, Japan.  So I have been introduced and exposed to Japan from a very early age, even though I am just a quarter Japanese.  But I cannot really remember what my intial impression was when I arrived here because I was roughly a year old.  When I was here in Japan previously, once I became older, I can remember a toy store that I loved going into as well as going to some temples with my family.  The thing that stuck out for me the most when I arrived here in Japan in August was driving on the other side of the road as well as the driver being on the other side of the vehicle.  This struck me as so wierd and foreign that I'm still not used to driving on the other side yet.  The other big impression that I have was how good Japanese drivers are, especially when they are backing their car into a tiny space.  It is incredible how good they are.  I'm, in a way, inspired to become a much better driver when because of the way the Japanese handle thier cars.