these streets

[taken from my notebook]
Ontakesan/Kugahara/Yukigaya neighborhood at night

I will never forget these streets. Spotless black and grey asphalt, thick white lines demarcating narrow boundaries. Sections of red paint and 止 まれ indicating stopping points. Low guardrails providing space for a very narrow sidewalk area that really, is just part of the road. The stillness of the midnight air is so tranquilizing, relaxing. I could have strolled all night, not knowing where I would be going, streets, eerily familiar, winding up hills, flat sections disappearing into the night, crisscrossing each other. The maze is endless, so many places yet unexplored, anonymous houses and apartment complexes hiding away ordinary people in a not-so-ordinary city. So quiet, so beautifully quiet.

The narrowness of the streets, at least the suburban ones, really add to the feel of this area. Cars barely squeeze through some streets, people quietly walking along, off in their own worlds of work, home, and school. Trees spreading their branches onto the pavement, quiet suburban homes hopeless jammed together, street lamps illuminating stop signs, the occasional old person walking the streets, cool air. For some reason, these small streets make everything, and everyone, feel at ease, as if all the world's worries don't apply to these people, these houses, these streets. I hate the suburbs in the U.S. Here in Tokyo, I actually feel like I could actually belong somewhere. But, everyone has their doors closed to me, no children, no life in these streets.

[photos during the daytime, with considerably more activity in each photo]