Fire Hydrant

The Crow

A photograph I did not take:

A middle aged lady carrying a Pekinese dog and wearing a black sweater, an A-line skirt and a pair of black sandals of the type favoured by nurses in Japan pokes warily with a packet of tissues at the corpse of a fallen crow lying on the sandy ground of the childrens baseball area in the park outside my house. For background audio, the faint hum of traffic, the occasional blast of marshal music from the black vans of the nationalists (today is Showa day, a national holiday) and the laughter of children as they play carefree and oblivious to it all in the sunlit park on the other side of the baseball ground's wire fence.

(visit the original meister of the non-photographic image here)

The Big Move

April is moving time in Japan. It's the time when university graduates are recruited and both new and established employees are re-located all over Japan by companies large and small. In almost all areas of work, new contracts are being signed, old contract reviewed.

The competition for the removal and relocation work is fierce, with the major companies advertising on national television promising 'meister quality', free gifts for the kids and after delivery services which include set up and fixing of the larger household items to secure them in case of earthquakes.

For those not moving, April means new neighbours. In my building I know of at least four appartments being vacated. Having only moved here last year I am still settling in, but with the imminent arrival of my first child due in early June we will be thinking about that extra room we wanted a little more.

Edit:
I wanted to add that Damon Coulter, whose blog site you can read here, is making the move back to the U.K from Japan. It's not so difficult to move to most places when you are single, but as a family of four...!
Good luck and safe journey Damon