Summer Shots (and other random things)

I went out to take some new pics around town now that summer has settled in.

The trees have exploded with green and the town is filled with flowers of all shapes and sizes.

(Warning: this post is gonna have a ton of pictures)

It's strawberry season here in Mashike - we have signs and banners all over the place announcing that they're for sale.

Is there anything more lame and commonplace as a picture of a flower?

Especially with the flower in focus and the background all blurred.

In high school art class, we weren't even allowed to draw flowers in our sketchbook because they were so trite.

Street leading to the ocean.

I passed the old high school, which is no longer in use. All the students go to the neighboring city north of us. The elementary school will be moving into this building next year though, so it won't be empty for long.

you can't tell from the photo, but as I was walking by this woman, I screamed, "GET BACK IN THE HOUSE GRANDMA."

So many young people have cars like this around here.

The car is lowered big time and the wheels, yeah the WHEELS, are turned inward at like a 10 degree angle. They're called "dished wheels" or "shakotan wheels" or something, but they're EVERWHERE here.

They drive around going 10 mph so their bumpers don't fall off and their axles don't break in half.

On a classier note, it seems like everyone and their grandma has a garden outside their house (including that woman I yelled at)

flower.

last flower pic, I swear.

Then I walked down to the ocean.

The scenery by the coast is really fantastic.

This is the car I've been driving lately - I lost the pink one a while ago. She... was taken away from me.

But I love this car, it's a little slower up hills, but it's a little easier to drive in some ways.

Oh yeah, and I was in the newspaper. No biggie. I'm just kinda famous.

That drawing on the board is supposed to be the USA... I know, I'm really embarrassed about it too. Not to mention my face; check dat mug - looks like I was trying to conjugate some irregular verbs.

Tim: "Listen carefully kids. Don't ever invite the press here again. That was humiliating."