16) This photo doesn't do
the neighbourhood pink shopping centre justice--not in terms of pinkness,
anyway. It was very pink, very cheap, open all sorts of weird hours, and just around the
corner. On the downside, the lights
inside were very bright and the jingly pop music was very loud. My first two trips there, I followed Kim
around like nonagenarian, blinking repeatedly and squawking "What?"
whenever her lips moved. The older I
get, the more usual that scenario will become.
17) The bug in the
picture below hung around the stairwell for a while. I got a bit lonely in the apartment during
the day, so I
became quite attached to this little guy, whatever species he was, and I
genuinely felt sad for not realising he was trying to escape. I thought the stairwell was his home. Anyway, I found him dead one afternoon [23/06/05], right outside the
door. He still looked pretty good,
though, for a dead bug. Requiescat in pace, dude.
18) Our neighbourhood was
suburban with extras. Just up the road,
about a minute's walk away, were an orchard of some kind, a bamboo forest that
looked like a frame from My Neighbour
Totoro, a lake where old guys and wild cats went every day to fish, and
more (I think this was called the Meitoku Kohen park, but I'm not 100% certain of that; some of it was
almost certainly private property).
Literally across the road from all this lush verdancy was something out
of Akira. Here's a selection of photos. I'm too lazy to label them all, and I know
the small size doesn't do the views justice.
But just look at all that green!
Mostly.
19) Between
20) Fans of the anime
series Lain will recognise the view
from the apartment's balcony (the park was to the rear, which according to a
compass was North; this shot points West, more or less). While taking this shot, a large team of
council workers were in the process of building a new road directly below the
balcony for the second time in a week.
Thus nature balances itself.
(continue)