There are still a few traces of fall colors around Kyoto, one of the nicest in the little common garden area of my condo building. One of its trees is just at its peak color now, turning a vivid rich red when hit by direct sunlight, or, as happens every evening, by direct incandescent floodlights.

It's nothing special 10 minutes after sunset....

... but hours later, it's positively glowing....

None of these pictures really do it justice. Just like the other foliage backlit by floodlights photos I posted earlier in the season, the intense light causes detail and color to [...]

Kyoto doesn't get much snow. The surrounding mountains get plenty, but the city proper might not get any real snowfall all year, or maybe up to a few mornings of accumulation a season.

It's already been cold enough for snow... the temperature has dipped to freezing a few evenings, although during the day it's still bout 10°C (50°F). But since many in the Northern Hemisphere are already seeing their first snows, I thought I'd post a few more pictures from the few snows Kyoto had last winter.

The shots on today's post are from one morning in February were Anthony [...]

Continuing along the lines of my previous two posts (on garments with silly English, and a confusing traffic sign), this is a picture I snapped last year at Osaka Castle Park when I was visiting with friends (and doing impromptu portraits and dodging paper airplanes).

It is, of course, the plainly-visible urinals on the men's half of an outside public bathroom near the castle.

I titled the image "uncharacteristic" not because of the visibility – most outside public bathrooms are more or less like this – but because this particular bathroom is much more clean and well lit than you're [...]

For reasons that I don't fully understand, shirts with English on them are extremely common in Japan. I think it's considered "cool". It's been this way since before I first came 20 years ago.

Sometimes what is written is a bit odd or silly, like the shirt above, on a lady watching a magic show (at Blume no Oka).

Most often, though, what is written makes absolutely no sense.   At all.   But that's okay, because most of the population doesn't have the ability to realize that it makes no sense, so everyone remains stylish and happy.

Here's a representative one [...]

Every time I head up to Shogunzuka like I did yesterday, I have to go by car because motorcycles are not allowed on the final part of the road going up the mountain. (I think because there was a big problem with drag racers and such 15 years ago.)

Motorcycles are allowed on the lower part of the mountain, but only sometimes....

It took a few moments to let this sink in before I actually understood the meaning: Motorcycles prohibited except weekdays 7am-9am.