Heading south into the countryside

 The only think missing in this picture is the river. This area is a mixture of housing, farms and small industrial areas. The high rise apartment building is the last one as you move south. There is a change in zoning laws that prohibits buildings of more than two stories, so Nakagawa Machi, my town, is divided with the north half having taller buildings and the south half very rural.

 This is a typical house in this area. It is large and surrounded by rice paddies.

The roads in this area follow the canals that form the system for providing water to the paddies. As I approached this spot, it appeared that the small building wold contain an altar of some kind. From this vantage point it was not possible to determine whether it was going to be Buddhist or Shinto.