Welcome to the Neighborhood

Since most of my faithful readers in the states won't get the chance to come visit, I thought a photo tour of our neighborhood would be a good idea.

Let's start things off when a picture of our building.

Lovely, isn't it...

Right next door to our building is a park, where all of the locals play/walk their dogs/hang out in the afternoon and evening.  

A small stretch of the large park

We've been told that this is a more affluent area of Yokosuka, and it's pretty evident by the surrounding housing and buildings.

We're across the street from a school - even in another country we're surrounded by schools! :-)

A few of the houses in our neighborhood, they're large by Japanese standards.   

I have to include a picture of our local grocery store and pharmacy. We've enjoyed quite a few delicacies from this place, I look forward to posting some more food adventures.

The other day I was walking to the train station when I realized how amazing it felt to confidently walk to the nearest train station.  This may seem a little crazy, but as someone who fears public transportation, I feel like I've pretty much mastered it here in Japan!  So far, every time I've gotten lost, I've managed to get "found" again pretty efficiently.  Anyway, here's some pictures from the route we take to the Kita-Kurihama station...

We have to descend a hill, this is from the top.

Then we cross the street and walk next to some neighborhoods. 

Walking along the road...

Eventually, we hang a right and walk a small, one-lane residential road through a fairly nice neighborhood.  

I think this house is amazing and totally Japanese.

Do you see the laundry out to dry?  A majority of residents do not have a dryer, so there are always clothes hanging out to dry.  I think it's kind of funny.  

This little guy is always out to greet us.  Weird, yet cute.  

We have to cross the train tracks to get to the station, but that's the train station!

  The train tracks on the left are going away from us and the tracks on the right are coming towards us...it's opposite of the U.S.

So there you have it!  That's our neighborhood in a nutshell.  We are enjoying it and the 20ish minute walk to the train station is good exercise.  Of course on those days when we are just not feeling the walk, we can catch a bus near the grocery store that takes us to the Keiku-Kurihama station, one stop down from Kita-Kurihama.  And then sometimes we take a taxi, but that's only when we're coming home and we're really tired or it's freezing/windy outside.  Really, that's the only time.  I swear.  :-)