Walking to school? Of course!

For the most part, I still walk to school every day. At least two of the teachers who were transferred a couple weeks ago also occasionally walked to school, so I wondered if there would be any walkers among the newbies to replace them.

Almost right away, I found one replacement. Mr. A, the new English teacher (in the center of the picture), told me he wanted to walk to school with me. That was good news, until he told me what time he planned on leaving home: 7:15.

Remember when I started walking with Moto way back when? It was bad enough having to start out with him around 7:30 instead of 8:00. But now the new guy is telling me he wants to leave at 7:15? So we would arrive at school at 7:45? Even though the first class doesn't start until 8:40? Hmmm...

I bargained a bit and got Mr. A to change his mind. So yesterday we headed to school at 7:20. Just behind us were the elementary school kids who live at our apartment complex, accompanied by Mr. T, one of the two guys who have been living the longest at otokozaka (the name of our apartment complex) and is therefore our elder.

Mr. A was kind of in a hurry, so he (we) didn't wait for Mr. T. But Mr. T caught up with us by the time we reached the bottom of the hill leading up to school, so we all finished the walk to school together.

I asked Mr. T if he planned to walk to school every day. His answer: "Of course! ... Until tomorrow."

This morning, Mr. A called me and said that he'd like to meet me at 7:25. Yeah! That's more like it. Because 7:25 will turn into 7:30. Which is a good time to leave. And indeed, when I went downstairs to meet him, there he was, standing with Mr. T and the group of elementary school kids getting ready to head out. So we actually left at nearly 7:35. Nice, huh? And we all left together, which is nicer, of course.

At least two teachers who drove by asked us if we walk to school every day. Mr. T answered for us: "Of course!" And when the drivers had gone on ahead, he said, "Until today."

And just before we arrived at school, another new teacher, Mr. H (R's daddy!), appeared on a trail through the woods. I wasn't surprised at all to see him walking to work, since he already struck me as an outdoorsy type of guy. (Mr. H lives at hirokino, which is the other teacher's housing complex that I mentioned a long time ago. Hirokino is about a five-minute drive to school, and I just can't comprehend how anyone who lives there bothers to drive to work when it takes the same few minutes to walk here.)

So there we were, the four of us, walking together along the last 50 meters to school. Now if we can just get the rest of the teachers to walk.

On another note: I try to take a picture every morning of the same scene. For a long time, the daily picture I took was of me in front of a rice paddy. Then I switched to just taking a picture of the rice paddy. But I got tired of that same picture. So I started taking my picture in a new spot, only about 100 feet from the back entrance to school. That's what the second picture above is all about.

Oh, and that third picture? Well, I just threw that one in there to take up some space! The photo was taken in the parking lot where the local vegetable store and kajika-no-sato (a restaurant close to school that I once mentioned) are located. Like my new shades? Like my hat?