July seems to be the month for new stuff to open in my neighborhood. I’m a bit out of central Tokyo, but not so far; it’s a nice spot. 25 km from Shinjuku on the west side of Tokyo, Inagi is just a half hour out by train, closer than Tachikawa or Hachioji, and as such is probably one of the closest-in open green hilly areas in the city. My apartment is a 20-minute walk, or a 5-minute bus ride (if you can catch it on time) from the station. There’s not much around here–a big supermarket/home center just a block away, but that’s about it. The closest video store is two stations down or a 7-minute drive (which always puzzled me–this is a big housing area, with maybe around 3-4000 units within 5 minute’s walking distance of where a video store could be, and more units being built–you’d think it’d be a bidding war for the rights to open a video rental place). So whenever anything new comes up, it’s worth noticing.

The first thing to open was the new central library for Inagi City, just a short hop away from my apartment. Their English-language material selection is not great, but not bad; not as good as my own college’s library (naturally, since we’re an American college), but there’s still stuff there. A limited video and CD selection (they have DVDs, but I imagine most are checked out at any given time; what was left included, strangely, lots of Elvis movies), a few English-language magazines, The Japan Times, and maybe 100-200 English-language books.

Their computer search feature, accessible online, is nice, but it has a major flaw: an author search will not reveal English-language materials, though a title search will. Still, I was able to reserve The DaVinci Code; it’ll be there for me maybe in a week or so.

Another new opening just this week was the main train station for the city. I haven’t used it for such a long time, it was now unrecognizable to me. The station itself got an upgrade, with escalators both ways on both tracks, and a new shopping building was added on, including a supermarket, drug store, bookstore, coffee shop (Tully’s, not Starbucks), 100-yen shop, a few restaurants, and a sports club on top.

Still no video rental store in sight. Ah well.

As I mentioned before, the new boulevard through the center of town also opened recently, and now I have found a way around the 5-traffic-light trap. Strangely, a one-lane side street running parallel not only is devoid of lights, but there are no stop signs at all in the direction I go. It takes me just past the traffic-light trap, so that works out quite nicely.

Of less consequence to me, a restaurant kitty-corner to the supermarket a block away from my house got torn down and a new senior center was built, with a swimming pool and other exercise and rehab facilities. Good for them. They also opened a new convenience store on one side of it, but I so rarely use those things now that it also doesn’t matter to me.

But that’s all the excitement out here in dullsville for the time being. But more will be built, especially as far as roads and public works. As someone pointed out to me recently, Japan’s version of the military-industrial complex is the government-public works complex. They’re always building some road or bridge or tunnel or new facility or some such, and it always takes them years and years and years to complete. For example, that new boulevard ain’t finished yet. The road comes up to just past the city center, but there is a 100-meter stretch still unfinished; when it is, the road will go straight through to Hashimoto, some 15 km down the way. But it will probably take them 3 years to finish that one little bit. Already, I’ve seen them out there working for the past year on that stretch with no discernible progress. That’s what construction in Japan is like.