Neighbourhood photos

Here are a couple of photos from my neighbourhood, in fact less than a minute's walk from our house.

The first one is at the local Japanese primary school's swimming pool. Most everyone knows that in Japan you take your shoes off to go inside, isn't that right? But that strict boundary between "shoe on" and "shoe off" territory extends to many other areas. 

In this case, the kids all wore their shoes to this pathway, removed their shoes and walked along this temporary walkway to the pool (they probably changed into their swimmers in their classrooms). Neither would their shoes touch this walkway nor would their feet touch the ground. It is quite an art!

The second one is our local garbage station. These are dotted around the neighbourhood and are where you deposit your rubbish for collection. The Green bin is for burnable. Pink is for cans (like soft drink cans). Blue bin is for PET bottles. And the Blue baskets are for glass and other dangerous things like batteries. 

No wheelie bins here. We have no room on our property, let alone the road. If everyone put out bins as large as a wheelie bin on our road we'd have road congestion!

This fortnight it is our responsibility to look after the rubbish station. We have a community broom, tin bucket and disinfectant. After the "burnable" collection on Tuesday and Friday I've gone down and swilled some water in the green bins. There hasn't seemed to be much else to do, so I hope that that is all I'm required to do!

Sometimes it is the small things that make it different to Australia. Students still do swimming, residents still put out rubbish; but the difference is in the way it is done.