A Photo of a Photo of a Mirror

For the first time this year, I went for a walk without my coat! My original mission was to sneak close to the wall of a neighboring home and snap some close-up pictures of the cherry tree as its blossoms waned. This soon changed into snapping photos of random things. What can I say, I'm that kind of photographer.

This mirror is what's supposed to be utilized by the drivers that roar down our narrow street to look around blind corners. In reality, it only gives false security that if there is a car you're about to crash into coming around the bend, you might be able to avoid it. The high wall in the mirror, which fences in the mega-huge nice house I wish we lived in because it has a balcony that faces the sun for the purpose of drying clothes in this dryer-less society (we'd be happy for just a corner! They'd never know we were there...), is typical of what lines most Japanese streets. There's no curb, nowhere to swerve to avoid disaster really, just a choice between crashing into the wall or crashing into the thing you were trying to avoid in the first place. This would also explain why, when people pull off and park on the side of the road, they in essence block that lane of traffic...

But I digress. This particular mirror is useless, since nobody uses the adjacent road to turn onto ours. Ironically, it is one of the better placed ones, being placed at a good angle for decent sightlines. Some I've seen are positioned so badly that you'd be no worse off if it didn't exist at all and had to deal with the blind corners alone. These are also the intersections where I've seen quite a few accidents and shattered glass & tail lights on the road while riding my bike.

That figure in the distance is a distorted picture of me taking this picture. I just happen to be wearing a turtleneck the pale color the cherry blossoms blush in their prime, which seems fitting considering we have both opened our arms to embrace the warmth of springtime.

I know what you're thinking. It doesn't matter what anyone says; it's not pink. Cause, you know, I don't do pink. But I DO do Korea, and that's where my dear husband and I are headed in a few short hours! We'll be gone for the rest of the week, so posts will begin again sometime after that.

Have a great Golden Week!