Here's a look around our neighborhood (Okinawa, Japan). I shouldn't have used the "simple mode" setting on my camera because the quality is only so-so. But you can get an idea of what things look like. You can click on the smaller pictures to see them enlarged.
Here's the front of our house. Like my lovely plants?
A house near ours. You can see our yellow cement carport behind it.
Cross street near our house. I found out the writing on the pavement says "School Zone."
This is a big house by Okinawa standards.
Most houses have gates in front.
The gray structures are family tombs where they put the ashes of their dead family members (like in "Mulan").
Okinawa has lots of flowering bushes.
It's pretty common to see these planters on people's walls.
A baseball game outside the local Junior High School. There are three schools in our neighborhood, all unpainted cement. The junior high school kids like to holler "Hello!" to us off the balconies when they're on their breaks. The braver ones sometimes add "How are you?"
Lovely stuff:
There was also an elementary school baseball game going on nearby, and these kids were walking nearby:
I love palm trees!
A busier street. Note the unpainted cement building. Most buildings are cement, so they can easily withstand the typhoons. But many are painted. But then the painted ones get streaked from oxidation, accelerated by the salty air. When we moved here I was disappointed with the unattractive buildings.
Since then, I've learned that the real beauty of Okinawa is its nature, not so much the buildings. This house is a good illustration:
I've often admired the flowers around this house. There are a lot more off to the left.
This bird is called the Japanese White Eye. I followed it around for several minutes before I could snap its picture.
A walkway between the backs of some houses:
Papaya tree:
Our friends, the Gibbs, live in this little house. They love it!
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Big house next to the Gibbs':
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Some carports have gates like these. You see very few garage doors.
That's the East China Sea in the distance.
There are three makeshift houses on this hillside. Makes me sad to see them and I wonder how well they withstand typhoons.
Bougainville is common above people's walls, fences, arches. I have a bougainville plant but it's not doing very well:
This is the fruit and vegetable market that I most often frequent. It's about a 10-minute walk from our house.
Notice the "Big 1" store. It's like a Big Lots--cheap stuff. Many businesses have English names.
This sign is near the elementary school, warning drivers to watch for school kids.
Instead of having gas lines, the gas guy brings a tank of gas to your house and swaps it with the old one every so often.
This is what I call our street. The blue metal sign on the wall on the left marks the block number. An address doesn't include a street name, but instead has three numbers: [area]-[block]-[house number].
