Self-indulgent I know, but here is yet another photo of our street, this one taken from the Sandadani Park end. I could tell you a few anecdotes about this or that neighbour, but perhaps another time. May I draw your attention to the gutters (the principle reason for posting this shot), which are fairly typical in Japan. Yes, pretty much open trenches and an absolute trap for any motorist who might happen to get a little too close. I only ever saw such an accident once, just around the corner, in fact. Once the front wheel went in to the gutter, the car (a van) lurched into the wall. An expensive mistake. On another occasion a new teacher friend of ours walked right into one on a dark night.
So why not cover these vast troughs with a steel grate or the like? Well. you can, but you have to do it yourself. Concrete rectangular blocks cost about 150 yen each and you might need forty to do the front of the property. You can see that the residence on the left of the photo has done this very thing. We had bought and installed a dozen or so outside the school in the critical spots, such as where students parked their cars, and I would have eventually filled the entire area had we not come home.
Apparently this kind of guttering is great for pushing heavy snow into, or so I was told. Though there must really be a better way.
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