KAWASAKI CITY

From Mukōgaoka-yūen one stop by Local on the Odakyū Line to Noborito-eki. ‘Noborito desu. The next stop is Noborito.’

NOBORITO STATION

‘Please transfer for the Nambu Line’ Down the speaking escalator to the Nambu Line platform. Said escalator leaves no doubt. In self-reiterating Japanese it announces: ‘This is the Escalator down for the Exit. Don't stand at the beginning or end of the escalator. Please stand inside the yellow lines.’ All good notification as it were. Useful, I imagine, for sight-impaired passengers. I myself listen, look admiringly, and obey.

Nambu Line, then, and all stations to the city of Kawasaki. Names are a bit confusing here – Kawasaki-shi is normally translated as Kawasaki City. But that covers the whole region or province. Ourselves are headed to the city itself, very much a shop-andresidence conurbation created since the war. And for a two-point visit: sludge and peace.

First a Nambu stop-by-stop ride to Kawasaki-eki, but not without a moment at the station before Kawasaki – the orthographically challenged Shitte (blessedly pronounced Shi-tay).

Exit Kawasaki-eki and on to a Number 10 bus bound for the outskirts. Our mission: to visit nothing less than the Iriesaki Composite Sludge Centre. There, even as the mind thinks waste pipes and sewage farms, dark intestinal processes and vents, one encounters the Iriesaki Heated Swimming Pool. Children to be seen swimming. Special rates for seniors.

All in the one complex. It is a radiant conjunction, sludge, huge metal transformers, water reclamation, pool lanes, kids, pensioners. Another view adds some of the metal construction.

Back on the trusty Number 10 bus to Kawasaki and a half-dozen stops up the Nambu Line and it is time for The Kawasaki Peace Museum and Park, the latter in romaji the Kawasaki Heiwa Koen. Alight at Musashi-Kosugi-eki, ten minute walk and there is the Museum building. KAWASAKI PEACE HALL. So inscribed in Japanese.

And then the park, a grassy knoll or patch. Various stone sculptures, notably War and Peace by the American artist Jim Sanborn. Together with companion pieces.