My legs are not as tired as I thought they'd be

This weekend I went exploring, which I have not done in a long time because I spent the previous 4 weekends going to places that are not my town.

Yesterday I took the local train down to Where The Train Tracks End, because if you go any further you will plow straight into the Pacific Ocean. That place is called Kashikojima, and it is full of pearls and ise-ebi (lobster), and regular ebi (shrimp), too. The station is right next to the wharf and its jumble of shops, and it smells of kelp and sea salt.

Today I discovered the hill behind my apartment. I mean I'd always known it was there, and that I could walk along a portion of it to get to work faster, but only recently did I notice a kei-truck parked up on a rise of ground that upon further inspection proved to be an unpaved road of sorts. It branches off the old paved road that I walk along normally, which disappears beneath my school's baseball field. So today I decided that before I went to the store I'd see where that little dirt track leads. Turns out it just winds alongside the marsh behind the school grounds and dead-ends after you walk through a creepy clearing where I-don't-know-what goes on, and then an archway of new bamboo.

But there is a footpath that continues onward, into mystery and adventure. I didn't have my camera with me, but this wasn't the sort of exploring I could really do justice to using a camera. Anyone who visits me from now on, I am bringing you by the rough and unbeaten track up that hill. Except it will probably never again be this kind of cool, sunny, sleepy day in early spring when there aren't enough insects to be a bother and the animals are still lying low and nobody is working the tiered orchards planted up there and it's so quiet, that whole piece of the world just dozing.

Still, we're going for a hike.

The last bit of walking I did was along the river bank on my way home from the store. I guess since today was pretty warm and sunny a lot of the older neighborhood residents were camped out with big buckets and nifty contraptions made of either bamboo or plastic tubing and fine mesh. They were catching little fishies, like minnows except I dunno the Japanese version of minnows, scoopin' 'em up with the mesh traps. Given the things I've seen at the store, though, I can't say with any certainty whether they actually intend to use them as bait for bigger fish, or just eat the little guys. Maybe both.