3 in 30 - 2000.03.11
ornamental kale
This area of Japan does not often get below freezing during the winter and there are plants which do not become barren sticks for part of the year. A common ornamental winter plant is kale, displayed here by our neighbor Yanagawa-san.
bike parking
Behind our house used to be a rail line. After that we are told it was a narrow road on top of the railroad grade. It was closed off and became an area where people parked bicycles while using the nearby train station. While we have lived here, they leveled the area, paved part of it, laid paving stones and put planters, leaving the sides for bicycle parking. Recently, the city put in barriers and markers and have started charging a fee for watching parked bicycles. We keep our bicycles on our driveway.
The back of our house is visible to the right of the picture.
wall
When people live close together, fences are common. There are many attractive fences and walls we have seen in Japan. This is a wall facing the bike path behind our house. It is made of smooth river stones, a common wall material, though not used in house building.
Also in this snapshot, you can see a species of bamboo coming up through the cracks in the paving. The angled yellow tube is a protective cover for a power pole support. Most of Tokyo was rebuilt in only the past fifty years and underground utilities has not been a major part of the current infrastructure though you can see the corner of a cover to underground access and the box with the meter is connected underground.