This is the area near my place.  I think it's fairly typical of most of the smaller stations.

This is on one side of the station.  One of the stores is called Seiyu and has a grocery store on the first floor and a Thrifty's like store on the second floor.  It's open until 9pm every night.  Most stores in Japan are only open until around 7pm.

Here's a couple of small streets near the station.  Like Ohta there are lots of little stores.

And there's the Musashi−Shinjo station with a train just pulling in.

This is the area by Musashi−Mizonoguchi, the next train staion.  Where as Musashi−Shinjo station is a 15 minute walk Musashi−Mizonogushi is about a 20 minute walk.   This is actually the center of Takatsu which is the town I live in. There are two large department stores there.  Now that I have a bike I think I'll go check it out more often.

This is the Tamagawa or Tama River.  The train above in the Musashi−Shinjo picture basically runs parallel to it and at starting in Kawasaki where the river meets the Tokyo Bay.  The road the the bridge in the picture basically goes in the direction of Shibuya which is a city in Tokyo.  This picture was taken about a mile or so from my room.

This is the JR Musashi Kosugi Eki (train station).  This station services the JR Nambu line which goes along from Kawasaki to Noborito along the river above.  This station also connects to the Tokyu Touyoko Line which goes from Shibuya to Yokohama (actually to Sakuragiccho where Landmark Tower is).  I spent quite alot of time here waiting for the Nambu train since it doesn't run that often late at night.