Neighborhood Hirakata

Konbanwa!
Since the last post I've been experience a lot in Japan, it barely feels like I have been in Japan for almost 3 weeks now. This weeks theme is my neighborhood Hirakata. Hirakata is for me very different from what I expected when I got here. I expected a big city with skyscrapers and futuristic buildings and so on. What keep bugging me since I got here, is how everybody complains how cold it is here. Where I'm from (Sweden), this is the beginning of the Swedish spring. What I like about Hirakata is how the whole town feels so small but in the reality it is the same size like the biggest cities in Sweden. I like to bike a lot here, and one thing I notice during the evenings is how everything is so quiet and dark. And this is only when I finish my afternoon class, the house are dark and I bet most of the japanese are working late.

The pictures I've chosen this week is how even though Japan is way ahead of it's time, we can still see a lot of the old japan, the traditional japan. The last picture shows how hard working japanese people are.


These two pictures are from the park right outside the seminarhouses. In the park there are a couple of stations where you can work out, and usually these places are occupied by seniors working out during evenings. No wonder Japan has the highest life-length in the world.

This store is one of the most visited by the exchangestudents. Even though the vendingmachines where you can buy beer is the most affiliated with this store, it's the woman who owns the store that fascinates me. I've been in that store a couple of times now, and it's surprising everytime I see that woman working there. She has to be at least 85 years old, and still, she is working there. How long do japanese people work? This store is open long during the evenings but is closed during the day. Even though Hirakata is bigger than most cities in Sweden, it feels way more smaller. I guess Hirakata is considered to be a small city in Japan if you compare it with rest of Japan.
/Quang