Afro Samurai's Adventures In Japan

The area around the seminar houses is a place that I call home. This area however, is pretty different that anyplace that I have ever lived in before. The area is filled with elderly people and school age children. The neighborhood seems to be very quiet and peaceful, so quiet that the seminar houses actually disturb the neighborhoods natural harmony.

The houses seem to be like many other Japanese areas I have visited and their are a bunch of apartment complexes around. Their seem to be a lot of family homes. The family homes are occupied by the Hirakata locals, but the apartments tend to be occupied by students attending Kansai Gaidai. Their are also a couple shrines and a graveyard.

The people in the neighborhood don’t really seem to interact with each other as frequent as I have seen through my own living experiences. They do seem to be rather friendly and can occasionally be seen bonding at places such as the local park. In the park, people tend to bring their children to play and then they converse about daily life and news events. However, even though they seem to bond at the park, I have yet to see a group of neighbors visiting each others residence.

The people seem to be very friendly to foreigners. From my own experience, I was offered an umbrella by one of the local residents because she saw me walking down the street in the rain. The children all seem to enjoy talking to and meeting the Kansai Gaidai students and talking with them. The Gaidai students tend to be a big disturbance due to all the late night drinking and partying. The neighbors often complain about the noise the students make in their rooms.

In the end, the neighborhood surrounding the seminar houses is peaceful and good for the students because it gives them their first glimpse of Japanese culture and the people are generally friendly enough to interact with.