3 in 30 - 2000.10.29 Sunday
Local real estate office also offering rentals
On a rainy Sunday afternoon, there aren’t too many people out and about but enough to keep a number of businesses open for customers.
On the other side the station, down the street a bit from the Lotteria is this brick faced rental agency. I believe it is owned by our neighbor Sakonaka-san. It was Sakonaka-san’s daughter and her husband who build a house in what used to be a vegetable garden just across from us.
I think Sakonaka-san and his son operate it. In the window on the left, you can see a couple of dozen postings for apartments. Since we don’t need a place to live, I haven’t checked to see what they say.
ラーメンシヨップ Ramen Shop just like it says.
Next in the row is this ramen shop, appropriately named Ramen Shop. We used to go here and have a huge bowl of ramen noodle soup about once a month. The bowls they use are about 30cm (12") in diameter, about 8cm (3") deep and glazed a celedon blue-green.
Standard ramen is noodles, a broth, with a slice or two of pork, sliced leek, bamboo shoots, a slice of steamed fish cake, some greens of some sort, and a couple of small sheets of seaweed. This simple dish is a whole meal.
The shop is part of a chain of ramen shops and offers variations of the standard ramen as well as gyoza (sort of like fried wonton) and fried rice Chinese style. This is basic Japanese fast food, even though the menu items originated in China.
Our handy Tamashin Savings and Loan Bank
From the same spot under an awning out of the light rain, is this snapshot of the Tamashin Ginko. It is a friendly savings and loan type of bank rather than one of the big powerhouse institutions. This is where we do our Japanese banking. We picked it for no other reason than that they were helpful to Beverly’s father when he wandered around searching for coins to collect.
We keep a small amount of money here to meet a few of our Japanese utility bills which are deducted automatically from our account each month. This includes LP gas to run our stove and oven, city water, electricity and local calls on our phone bill. We also use the teller machines to wire money for airline tickets, concert tickets as well as withdraw a bit of weekend cash, for instance when we haven’t planned ahead and want to eat some ramen.