Ooooh now that was fun

Hey folks,
Well, well, well.
After 11 years and one marriage I returned recently to Kurume, where I was an innocent exchange student for one year at the tender age of 16. With Nic in tow, we embarked on a bundle of new adventures that went a little something like this...
Trained on in to the Bullet Train station in Nagoya - about half an hour away and found our lov-er-ly seats, departing at about 9:30 on Saturday. Whisked along at unbeleeeeeeeiveable speeds we reached Kurume by way of Fukuoka at 2:30ish and were greeted by my erstwhile host brother and his brood, as well as that of his sister. So we piled in the car and set off for a whistlestop tour of my old home town.

Didn`t remember a thing.

The place is bonkers. Completely different from when I left it...and heres why...

Ever played Sim City?

Sim City is a strangely addictive computer game whereby you are the mayor of a city and have to guide its development from a fledgling village type affair to a sprawling metropolis, all the while keeping your economy, population satisfaction, pollution etc in check. Go get it. It`s good. Now in Sim City, if you want to replace, say, a bunch of houses with say, an airport, you demolish them --click-- and throw in an airport --click--. It`s as simple as that. Now expand that out to the real world and lo!! Kurume.

Over the past 10 years the city has been sectioning of portions of maybe 20 square blocks, turfing everyone out, no matter how much the howl, or how long their family has been there, and then demolishing the lot. They straighten the roads, fix the sewers, plant some trees and throw in some parks on the vast, vast, vast empty lots then they divide them up again according to what the individual families had, minus a percentage of land used for new, wider roads and the like, and invite the people back. BONKERS!! All the while - bearing in mind this takes 2-3 years to complete, the city is paying for these people to live elsewhere, and also pays compensation for any land lost in the developments. BONKERS!! Apparently a lot of people don`t move back. WOW I thought. No wonder everything looks so.......new. For and against arguements are blindingly obvious, particularly following the haphazard (re)construction of Japanese cities following the war. I just thought you`d find it interesting.

Morgan - I reckon you should get some Hou.singNZ folk over there for a look see. It`d make your job infinitely easier I reckon.

Right. More about the family later. Tara!