My first week here, I was still recovering from weird jet lag and attempting to fight the insane heat, so not much exploring was done. However, I was still able to establish some main points of navigation close to me.
[Map of my surroundings after 1-2 days in Hirakata]
As I said earlier, I didn’t really get out much the first couple of days. The only thing that I actively searched for was somewhere to buy groceries. In this search, I did not stray far from campus. The only thing that I was totally sure of was the Lawson at the end of the street. I did go a couple of other places, but I was following other people at the time and very quickly forgot where we had gone.
[Map of my surroundings after 5-7 days in Hirakata]
After 5-7 days I was a bit more comfortable with the main intersection next to campus. I found a closer location to buy food that was right next to campus, and I saw that the perpendicular street was the way to Kansai Gaidai’s second campus, and was host to a lot of restaurants.
[Map of my surroundings after 10-12 days in Hirakata]
This is the chunk of time in which I really started to explore. As you can see in the map above, I became a lot more familiar with the main streets next to me and traveled farther down them. I was also able to locate two train stations, and took trips to Kyoto and Osaka. This area of the city is what I have really mastered. I have yet to really travel up the street though, I have only been to the store Izumiya once.
To me the easiest part of navigating is finding landmarks and their immediate surroundings. If we were to use the map as reference for cardinal directions, to the north is the big train station and the Hirakata T-Site which is a big shopping area. To the south is the Nakamiya Campus and is the direction that the bus route runs (seeing as there were only stops on that street). To the east is where I live and is a highly residential area. In fact most of my immediate surroundings in Hirakata seem to be housing.
[Bookstore inside of Hirakata’s T-Site Shopping Area]
Although I am familiar with this area, I still have no clue where I am in reference to Hirakata. I don’t even know my general area on a map. So there is a lot of work for me to do in learning my surroundings. But, I am starting to find exploring more fun than stressful like it was in the beginning. I hope to learn more about Hirakata soon!
[A picture of the main street while on my way back home]
1 comment:
Sounds like the beginning of our journeys started much the same, except you had the luxury of starting in an area with more stuff in it, like a Lawson's at the end of the street. I had to walk through a maze of houses to get to my first grocery store, and there is absolutely nothing except residential houses next to the seminar house.
I'm also not used to navigating on my own. For the first few weeks that I was here I refused to go anywhere that wasn't absolutely necessary on my own. I didn't even use the bus to get to campus the first few days despite the heat because I was afraid to use the bus alone. And then when I finally chose to use the bus I only used coins for maybe two weeks before I got the courage to go to a train station and get an Icoca card. I understand the anxiety.
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