Sometimes there are cultural difference clues right in front of you, and you either don't notice them or understand what they mean. Take the design of the house in the picture above. You can see that it has a third floor with an extreme slope such that the room at the top is quite small (and certainly oddly shaped). The reason for this is the focus on sunlight in Japan is very high. Everyone has to worry about how they built their homes so that their neighbor's light isn't blocked. You see a lot of houses like that one when you see three-story homes. The extreme slant allows light to hit the windows of the house behind it when the sun is high in the sky.
I'll miss these interesting architectural elements that accommodate the priorities of ones neighbors.
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