On Wednesday morning, we lived across the street from the Bunmeido Book Store. By Wednesday night, we didn’t.

A few weeks back, workmen started picking apart the building. First all the bricks around the bottom floor disappeared, then big hydraulic jacks were put in place to shore up the walls. I guessed they were either raising the building to add another story or installing an earthquake safety system.

But on Wednesday night when we arrived home after Japanese class and pizza, the building was gone! Vanished. The interior tile floor was still there, but nothing else. Not even any rubble.

How mysterious. I was in my office at home all day and never heard or saw a thing. How can you silently demolish a building?

On Thursday night, Tod came home from work and called me to the front door. “You’re not going to belive this,” he said.”Look out there…they moved Bunmeido!”

Sure enough, there it stands on the end of a patch of vacant lots two doors down from where it was on Wednesday morning. Astonishing. Posted by kuri at September 08, 2000 06:38 AM