Katrina found a bench by a large artificial pond. It was cool, quiet, and undisturbed.

Yes! She hadn’t merely stumbled on a place to rest—she might even be able to practice her violin. But first, she would rest, just a little, for her feet, and her side. Thank goodness she was Asian and still relatively clean—there would be a couple of curious glances, but no one was likely to call the police.

She placed her laptop next to her, put her escape bag under her head, and held her violin. She listened to the sounds of the basketball. She felt a little sunlight, and a gentle wind through the trees.

There was a fake waterfall. A fountain … and ducks …

Shizuka left the Starrgate Donut with no desire to revisit the freeway. Instead, she decided to drive the surface streets home. The car was from an admirer, given long ago. When she was younger, the Jaguar had seemed overpowered and loud. But with each passing year, she could better appreciate how timelessly it navigated the everyday chaos around her, yet never lost its singular, insatiable thirst for gasoline.

How many years had it been since she had last driven these streets?

So much had changed. If anything, change was the one constant here. Shizuka’s childhood sheet music store had gone first. Then Foodland, with its cute baggers and wobbly shopping carts, became Diho Grocery, and finally a Hong Kong bank, anonymous behind darkened windows and marble façade.

And now the elementary school had yielded to a Mediterranean-casual apartment complex, complete with mixed-use shopping and underground parking. Tonight, young people would be crowding these sidewalks, perhaps lining up for Japanese crêpes and Taiwanese shaved ice.

This was very different from Tokyo, where there was almost a desperation to either be at the forefront of change or to guard against it at all costs. Be it Harajuku, Meiji Jingu, Akihabara, each was defined by a strict relationship to, and profound respect for, change.

Here, change had continued with so little fanfare or notice that change had become, well, mundane.

Of course, some places remained curiously resistant to change. Fong’s Burger was busily serving its delicious pork buns from its greasy side window. Amy’s Pastries still displayed the same dusty wedding cake with the lopsided pillars and three dead flies. And there were the greasy, glistening, impossibly fragrant ducks, pigs, and cuttlefish dripping in the window of Sam Woo BBQ.

Yet none of these places appeared to be doing any resisting. Changing with the times? Fong’s didn’t even wipe their countertops with the times. And, as far as preserving tradition, Sam Woo BBQ was now happily promoting its new deep-fried fish skins.

There they were. And there, most likely, they would always be.

Yet another of Shizuka’s landmarks was now just ahead.