Photoessay #1053 - Yamagata Neighborhood

But first, a bit of internet wizardry. Yamagata City is googlemapped!

I wouldn't even have considered this but I've been following another blog http://kyotojournal.blogspot.com/ suggested by Grandma Anne written about their pastor who is spending several months in Kyoto. I recommend it! Today's entry talks about the temple at Kiyumizi-Dera (we went, many many students) and Gion (we went in the evening, saw the tourist show, definitely the district of geishas, nightlife and ancient private clubs. Earlier they wrote about their neighborhood being available on Google Maps.

Wow, Kyoto neighborhoods street view? Why not Yamagata? Could happen. Even though Yamagata is definitely a provincial city. But I checked and there it was!

So go on maps.google.com and type in 38.242867,140.337075
Click on things until you can get the street view and there's Nobuko's house. With the cemetery on the side and one of the temples behind the house.

Since I had not paid much attention to the map in Yamagata, Nobuko was driving us around (I already wrote the difficulties with Japanese maps), it was pretty tough to find it. But I stared and stared at those aerial photographs until I puzzled it out.

I'm always interested in landscapes (urban or otherwise) so on the last morning, I took a short walk with my camera just to show the neighborhood. You can see some of the same things on Google Maps but not as clearly.

I'll just feature 3 shots, maybe more later.

The first photo practically in front of Nobuko's house (the parking lot is for another temple, her parking spot is the next area over). Bicycles are used a LOT by people going to work and school. It's fairly early in the morning and the students in their uniforms are cycling to school. Helmets not used much. This is the small one way street that goes by Nobuko's house, a major highway is just a block or two away.

The wall to the right belongs to the temple featured in the second photo taken from the gate looking into the courtyard. I believe that's a shinto shrine on the right. As I mentioned, shrines, small and large everywhere.

I walked to the corner before the main highway turned right, walked down another small street and turned right again. Many small homes like the one in the third shot. Many have pretty small gardens tucked in.