I Was Assaulted In Kajigaya

During one of my few days off, I took the chance to go exploring in the area that I live in.  Now, my apartment is located in the sub-city of Yokohama called ‘Tama Plaza’, a very nice new-money area.  I have no complaints about where I live other than the all too frequent party by those who are unemployed in the same building that I live in.  This gets very annoying very quickly.  Luckily for me, thanks to a few tussles back in Canada, I have developed my courage and am not afraid to take a punch as I know I’m not made of glass.

But, I digress…

On my day off, I thought I would start walking from Tama Plaza and head North from my apartment.  I recall from years ago that if I walk north and up a hill, I would eventually come to a very large (and beautiful) park.  Well, after about a twenty minute hike up a hill that would make most car engines over-heat, I finally made it to the top of the hill and was rewarded (in a sense) by two things.  First of all, I discovered that this is ‘spider season’ in Japan.  The time of year when every tree, bush and leaf has a pair of ass-ugly spiders either mating or waiting for lunch.  Gross (I’m not a fan of spiders in the LEAST).  The second thing I was rewarded with was a lovely view (when I changed my focus away from the spiders of death in front of me) of a very nice park, the same one that I had walked through four years ago.

Many may think that this is where my days adventure would end, but they would be terribly wrong.  After taking a hop, skip and a jump through the park and after politely saying hello to a mother who was walking her children, one of which was learning to rid a bicycle, I continued my walk past the park and into a more industrial section of the city.  It was not until I returned home and talked to my good buddy Kazz that I found out I had strayed away from Yokohama and was then officially in Kawasaki city!  For those not in ‘the know’, Kawasaki is similar to Regina in a sense that it’s more of an industrial city, has lower taxes and is somewhat dirtier and more unkempt.  Walking through this city was certainly different from walking around the areas of Yokohama and Tokyo in that it was indeed somewhat dirtier and less groomed.  While I could explore Yokohama and noticed no litter on the streets, no weeds growing from between the sidewalk cracks… it was opposite in Kawasaki for some reason.  I’m not sure if there is less city pride, or if the city itself simply does not have the budget to keep it looking nice, but it is very different from the other parts of Japan.

Passing through the city, I stopped in an old favorite shop, the PC Depot and International Liquor Store (no, not together).  Both had the same layout that I remembered from before and both had unique items that I had to strain not to buy.  After forcing myself out the doors of these two shops, empty handed mind you, I continued in what I could only assume was East along one of the main roads.  Many people stopped and stared at me as I guess I was the first white face to show up ‘around these parts’ in quite a while.  I didn’t mind though and a few times I made eye contact, politely greeted and bowed with a simple ‘konichiwa’ and had it returned (to my surprise!).

Eventually after asking a beautiful young Filipina (who I had assumed was of Japanese descent), I was pointed in the correct direction of the closest station (Kajigaya).  I was informed that for a young guy like me, it should only take about thirty minutes to walk there (holy crap, it MUST be far) and after coming home and checking Google Earth, indeed it was a long ways away!  3 km away!!!  However, to the point of this post… while walking up hill, I caught a smell of something… something wonderful, something amazing, something delicious…. something that smelled like brownies my mother used to make back in Canada!  I kept walking and following the scent, every ten steps, deeply inhaling the delicious aroma!  Well, what had been a wonderful experience soon ended as I took one last deep breath in through my nose, only to be blindsided by a horrific smell of Japanese sewer….

After nearly throwing up, I figured I should just leave the brownies to my memory for now and begin to inhale air through my mouth instead.  Indeed I was assaulted that day.