My Neighborhood Hirakata

Compare to the crowded, noise city back in my home country, Hirakata seems to be a small and quite town, where nothing special seems to happen or exist. Even though it is the street that I always pass through, I never got a real chance to pay attention to the things and people in Hirakata. Just busy rushing to school by bike everyday; I miss all the little details happening around me. But, thanks to this week’s assignment, I actually could have a chance to carefully look around and pay attention to my neighborhood. I even tried to listen carefully to the sounds that are being produced in my neighborhood.

This is Seminar House 4 where I am living now and the next picture is the street and houses in front of my dormitory. In the first picture, the spatial ground next to Kansai Gaidai University sign board is the place where number 12 buses finally stop and very firstly take on passengers. I also use this bus often and from my room, I can hear the bus speaker saying “This is the bus which goes to Hirakata station…” in Japanese and then without checking the bus time schedule I can get ready and get on the bus! Whenever bus stops and people get off, I can hear people’s cheerful voices saying “Arigato gozaimasu!” toward the kind bus driver.

This is picture of a shop (I do not know what kind of shop is) and beverage, tobacco vending machine located opposite side of my house. And the second picture is the upper hillside way which leads me to 中央 圖書館 (Central library) and also to East gate of our school. On the way to school, following this uphill, I can always see several guards who always speak out cheering words, “Ohayo!” with smiles on their face. Unfortunately, I missed a chance to take a picture of them, but one time I watched my Japanese friend talking to the guard. It looked like very funny and joyful conversation that I can not easily imagine having with guards in my home town or home school.

Even though it is a small village, I think Japanese villages mostly have parks within their village and most houses are also raising so many flowerpots in front of their yards and also .over their walls. This gave me an idea that Japanese people like to live close by nature and live harmoniously with nature. While I was walking around my dorm on Sunday afternoon, I found two parks near my dorm: one in opposite side of my dorm and the other one back side of my dorm. And this is the picture of the park which is in opposite side of my dorm. Since it was peaceful Sunday, unlike weekdays, there were many people, especially parents and children, people and dogs, taking rest and playing inside the park. Just like they got on a picnic, in the small park with the wonderful sunny weather, everyone seemed so happy. There is also a café inside the park and they sell really nice cakes which can only be found in this café.