Spooning Japan: Drive to Work

So, every week day, I drive to work. It takes about 45 minutes, more or less depending on traffic. Here are some pictures from along the way.

Here's the first bridge over the road. This is where the trains pass over, just North of Nagoya Station. We walk this way on the way to the nearest subway station as well.

There are quite a few trees on the side of the road, even deep in the city. There are also tons of power poles everywhere. Apparently, the Japanese don't believe in buried utilities.

A raised highway, made of steel instead of concrete. I get on this highway every day a little further down the road. There are neat catwalks suspended underneat at various places, but I didn't get any pictures of them... so just imagine cool catwalks and pipes and stuff.

View from the highway, on the way out of Nagoya.

Just after getting off the highway. Industrial buildings and rice fields living together in harmony with deteriorating infrastructure.

Lots of signs have western symbols on them... but they aren't necessarily written in English.

Japanese suburbs, a small park, and a sculpture of some sort.

Even the suburbs are crowded.

But not so crowded that there aren't still trees every so often.

Is the bush sideways... or is the world?

Lots of flooded fields around this time of year. I'm not sure if the people who work the fields live in those houses, but it's fun to imagine that's the case.

Lots of houses have gardens instead of lawns. I approve.

There isn't enough space in Japan to keep the high tension power lines away from people, so they tend to put them over fields.

Speaking of fields, here's a field. Probably some rice?

Looks like this building is a water pump station of some sort. Still has a nice architectural style, even out in the middle of nowhere.

Mountains, and some sort of net cage. Driving range? Batting practice? Dangerous animals? The world may never know.

Sculptured plants in the median. Public topiary? Yes please!

Driving this section of road always reminds me of Midgard in FFVII.

Look how tall the roadway is! Nearly all the bridges in Japan seem to have more vertical clearance than the ones in the States.

The road passes through some sort of nature preserve. Bird sanctuary perhaps?

I think this is a storm drain channel of some sort. The terrain is very level around here, so I can see how this would be important in the case of heavy rains. On the other hand, judging from the vegetation, this channel is grossly overbuilt.