Don't Stalk Me

Warning: This post knows where you live.

Last Sunday I moved flat - my 3rd place since coming here in 2006, and a reversion back to living alone after the shambles that communal living deteriorated to in my last place (having my laptop stolen by my flatmate and living with people who never washed the dishes after they ate and built duvet-forts in the living room where they camped out and never slept in their bedroom are what I term "shambles", FYI). I have a Kiwi neighbour, an American and a few Japanese but I have the room (spacious but old) to myself. Much as I loved the previous place for its social factor, things like safety and general hygiene are vastly improved for having moved into a new place.

Looking it up on Google Maps, I clicked too far and suddenly found a remarkably high quality photo of the outside of the apartment block.

I know everyone got into Google Map's Street View quite some time ago, but when it first came out it was extremely limited (ie. certain parts of the States), and I never imagined they'd manage to make it all the way around to my side of the world.
How wrong was I?

Not only can you see my place in Osaka (above), the supermarket down the road and other wonderful parts of Namba, but it appears they've got New Zealand covered too. Not that you can see the whanau's house (it's down a long driveway), but still, the neighbourhood is there:
Driveway
Ferry Road and a view of the bay
The wharf near sunset
Still, they haven't made it into the countryside in Japan, nor anywhere in China from the looks of things. But the progress is almost scary. I just hope people only use it for good - like that story of the cop who found the girl kidnapped by her grandmother by using the GPS on her phone and Street View to find the motel they were at - rather than for the forces of evil -like a dude who might find a girl to kidnap and take to a motel, or (worst case), realising the political scenario of 1984...