Two women walk on cement carrying many packs and backpacks.
Two women are carrying bags and luggage.
The postwar obsession with comfort, convenience, and the latest electronic gadgetry has led most Japanese to forsake the traditional, simple, and elegant house of wooden walls, heavy tiled roofs, tatami-mat floors, and sliding panels for a modern  Western-style  house designed to exchange the austerity of the past for the prosperity of the future.