a lot of “who has(IP)?” “tell (IP)” ARP packets

o I noticed that the network traffic light on my router was constantly flashing meaning that it was seeing network activity even though I didn't have any devices connected to the router, so I fired up wireshark which didn't show anything interesting until I put the router in modem mode which bypasses the firewall etc the only thing that stays on is the modem part. So In modem mode I started seeing a huge amount of ARP packets "who has (IP)?" "Tell (IP)". The IP addresses are not from lan. Most of them look like they have the same IP range (2 first numbers) as the internet in my area. So my first question is are those ARP packets related to the traffic light on the router constantly showing network activity? If so is that normal. I don't remember it being like that a week ago. My second question is why am I able to see IP addresses in my area????? From my (tiny) knowledge wireshark doesn't have the ability to go past LAN. Please keep in mind that I'm a newbie when it comes to stuff like this http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=nofvkg&s=8#.VhAH9c_TVTc