Tarui Town - South of the Tracks

I leave for Canada in less than a week.  I am thrilled to be going back home to visit my family and friends who I have not seen in over four months.  I am a little sad that I will not be here for New Years, because I hear New Years is one of Japan’s most important holidays.   I guess I won’t get to try the delicious Christmas cake, either!  But seeing my husband and family again after four months of living alone in a small three room apartment will be nice, too! 

Oh yeah, that reminds me; I will eventually post pictures of my Japanese home another time.  But before I leave for Japan and abandon my “Living in Japan” blog for a couple of weeks, I thought I would share a couple of pictures and experiences with you. 

For this post, I am going to talk about a walk I went on one Sunday afternoon in Tarui.  So first off, why did I decide to walk around the Southern part of town and take a couple of photos?  Why not use my bike?  Well, I noticed when I bike around town I sometimes miss interesting little details because I am zooming by them to usually get to a destination by a certain time.  So one Sunday afternoon, I decided to explore the inner streets or the inner core of Tarui, the town I’m living in.  I only ended up walking in the Southern part of the core, which is south of the train tracks, so perhaps I will spend another Sunday afternoon exploring the Northern section of the town.  The southern part of the town isn’t that big, so I didn’t end up taking many photos.  But I did enjoy walking up and down the residential “streets” and trying to guess where they would lead. 

If you don’t know what the streets or “roads” look like in a small town in Japan, the best way I can describe it is that there are many main streets and side streets, but there also many smaller “walkways” where only bikers and walkers can go.  But often it’s difficult to find these walkways and sometimes you have to guess where they will lead you when you try a new path.  It’s sometimes easy to get lost when you use these narrow pathways.  Many of these paths lead to the homes of the people who live in town and that’s the only way to get to their home.  Where do they park their car if they can’t drive to their house?  Well, there are a few places where there might be 6 to 15 garages where people park their cars.  For example, I live on the second floor of a small apartment-like house.  Just below me, the residents of the street park their cars.  I have about five or six garages just below my living space.  Also keep in mind that some people have parking lots outside of their apartment complexes and some people do have a main road or side road that connects their house to the other roads.  But like I said, some homes are so crowded together that the only way to get to them, as far as I can tell, is with these narrow walking and biking pathways.  Sometimes I have tried exploring them and I wonder if I am on a pathway or someone’s driveway!  (I’ve actually made that mistake!)  Like I said, sometimes the pathways are difficult to find or navigate through, so it was an adventurous afternoon trying out the different paths and not knowing where I would end up.   

There’s one final detail I must explain before I show you a couple of pictures just so you know what section of Tarui I am talking about.  First, if you didn’t already know, Tarui is a town that is in the countryside of Japan and it expands over a large area.  The area that I am referring to in this post is the core or inner section of Tarui.  The “core” or “inner section” surrounds the train station and the Town Hall.  Today, I will talk about the south side.  (Incidentally, I live on the North side of the core, which is close to both the station and town hall, but I’ll get to that another day.)

First, this is what some of the streets and pathways look like.  Notice how narrow they are. 

I love this picture because in this narrow fork in the road, I found this very thin, narrow white house in the middle of it.  Living space in Japan can be tight!

Here is a picture of a couple of gardens I saw.  The orange flower is actually by the river on the north side of town, but I had to include it.

There are vending machines for anything you want everywhere!  Mostly I see vending machines for beverages and cigarettes, but I love a certain brand name of coffee in Japan that makes me smile every time I see it.  (I don’t like coffee, but I like the name).  Here are some pictures:

Yes, it’s “Boss” coffee.  Yes, you can drink “Black Boss coffee” in Japan.  So you can not only say you drink coffee like a boss, but you drink boss coffee like a boss! 

Anyway, here are some pictures of the south side of the station.  I never really see this side of the station because like I said, I live on the north side so I usually leave and enter the station from the north entrance and exit.  And I just have to say, the south side of the station is much nicer than the north side!  There’s a lot of open space for the parking lot in the south while the north side has more of a closed off, claustrophobic feeling to it.  On the north side, there is only a small drop off space in front of the station.  Also, you have to walk to the closed off parking lots.  The south side also has a drop off area for cars and taxis, but it also has trees and nice brickwork to the sidewalks.  Yikes!  Before I start sounding bitter about living on the north side, here are some pictures:

This next picture is a view from the south side of the station as the sunsets over the mountains.  If you look close, you can see the giant red gate to the Nanju Shrine.  (Boy, it sounds like and looks like I live on the wrong side of the tracks!!  I’m just joking, of course!  I like the north side, too!  Honest!!)

Speaking of parks, Tarui has a very small park on the south side of the core called “Cosmos Park.”  It’s a small, triangular park that has one statue, a couple of benches, some trees, and a small bathroom.  The park is only about 15 feet by 30 feet by 30 feet.  My tiny apartment is bigger than this park, but I still think it’s cute.  Here are some pictures:  (BTW, I love the autumn leaves in this park!)

I wanted to show you what a house would look like in Tarui.  Some homes are old, while others are actually quite new!  Here are a couple of pictures of some older homes:

Here are a couple of pictures of some newer homes:

Finally, I took a couple of photos of the riverside.  Yes, I know, the river is on the northern side of the north side of the core (I hope that wasn’t too confusing), but I wanted to end on the river because I bike over it or by it almost everyday.  I thought it might be a nice way to end my Sunday afternoon journey by admiring the beautiful river that runs through Tarui.