New and Old

 This the new. It is going to be a two-story wooden frame building, probably someone's home. Japanese buildings are built so that the frame supports the entire weight of the building. I understand that in American homes, for example, the walls are designed to support much of the load. The Japanese design means that it is relatively easy to change the floor plan if the building is remodeled. In some of the schools I've worked at, the classrooms could have the walls moved to adjust the rooms to expected class sizes. I was told by the foreman for one construction company that they were able to stay in business with the work that my school gave them each year and almost all that work was changing the layout of the rooms.

Here is the old. It is a large, nearly five feet tall, stele. There are characters engraved on it, but there were old and worn so I could not read them. Notice the way that the fences are stopped to allow the public access to the stele. Also someone is caring for it because there is a small bunch of flowers in front of it. I think that it probably is dedicated to a local god.