Lost in your own neighbourhood

Being lost in your "supposedly" neighbourhood in another country could be the most terrible nightmare of your life. It already happened to me a few times during the first week of my staying at Hirakata-shi in Osaka. Since I've been accompanied by my flatmates everyday to school, I assumed everything will stay in mind. Then comes the time when I had to head back home without someone to accompany me and worse comes to worst, I completely forgot the way back. I realized that I never really paid much attention to the area so it was quite obvious that someone would want me to get lost at some point. This unfamiliar environment known as my neighbourhood suddenly became much clear. I was more aware of the streets, the buildings, the shops, the people and all those vending machine while trying to find my way home. It was a major challenge but it gave me another perspective of my neighbourhood. There are virtually no roadside parking in the local neighbourhood. The roads, streets are ridiculously narrow and the houses are crammed up against each other but that doesn't mean that Japanese people are not able to give you space while you are passing them with your bike. Many times when I encountered a cyclist, I experience a limited space between me and them and I know in fact it is not only due to the narrow roads. So if you are suffering from claustrophobia, you should not come to Japan. The majority of my neighbours are old people and you can see them walking or even jogging along the street every morning but there are no way I could ask my neighbours for direction since I do not speak any Japanese and they are probably from a war-time generation where English was not common at school so I just walked pass them and gave them a nod to pretend that I don't seem be lost. However, their behaviour towards the environment shows how they seem to be related to the earth by being grounded. Therefore, I believe that my neighbourhood has a fundamental quality of health and life. Apart from my neighbours, there were power lines filling up the sky, little family owned shops and restaurants hidden between buildings and of course a world of vending. Wherever you go, you’ll surely bump into this fascinated vending machine. My neighbourhood sure is convenient but not enough for me to identify where I am. After an hour and a half, convenience was back in the game. A foreigner in my neighbourhood. How convenient, just follow the foreigner and you are home.

It is however a lovely neighbourhood and my stop-motion video will show you the local neighbourhood of Hirakata-Shi.