Here are some pictures from around the block, to familiarize you with my neighborhood.
The first picture was taken outside of the small market across the street from my apartment. It always has fresh and inexpensive produce. Second, these houses are behind my apartment. If you look really hard in the upper left hand corner you might be able to see a tall greyish building: that's my place. At least from the outside, these houses are really old, small and run-down. It seems like a big, beautiful house is not usually number one on the priorities list for the Japanese. I guess it figures, since the population is about 127mil, but is approximately the size of California, pop. 33mil. In the last picture, a blurry happy kid is playing in the park in the neighborhood. Have any of these convinced you to come visit yet? I have room... please?