Real Life Zushi City

I'm not the best photographer in the world, but I tried to capture some images from real life Zushi. Not the romanticized version of Japan I had in my mind when we first arrived here, but the real time version that I first saw outside the windows of the bus flashing through Yokota: the rusting, molding, steaming, sweeping the dried cherry blossoms out of the road, green-tea-out-of-plastic-bottle-swilling, cigarette smoking hulk of an island that has been my home for the last three years.
I'll miss the compact, wiry young workers having their noodles out of styrofoam cups inside of their tiny rusting trucks.

I'll miss the fiercely intelligent crows that tear apart the garbage bags and spread the contents everywhere (I know I have mentioned this before).

I'll miss the bows and the "dozo's" and the subtle social cues that I as a gaijin, sometimes miss.

I'll miss ordering ??? in a restaurant, not knowing how to read Katakana, and being surprised by the dish I am served.

Buying a skein of ??? yarn in Zushi city from a woman who also runs a dry cleaner's, finding out later that it is the most exotic eastern acrylic.

I'll miss the vending machines on every corner.

I'll miss the sight of a molting Shiba taking his elderly woman for a walk, carrying her ecobag and sensible shoes, her white roots peeking through the thinning black of her hair, and tufts of his fur blowing in her windy wake.

Young men with pretty groomed and styled hair, carrying man purses on the train.

And the site of the delivery motorbikes darting through traffic, with the rusting, swing contraption swinging from a hook on the back end, clamped tightly over bowls of rice and miso soup.