Near my home 10

Looking across the street from the bus stop, I could see couple of trees that are typical of Japanese trees in the late fall and winter, after the leaves are gone so that the trunks and branches are visible. These are, of course not natural. A couple of times a year gardeners come and trim the branches back to the same place. A knob develops at these places and each spring new branches burst forth, only to be trimmed back again in the fall. In some places there are whole streets lined with trees like this. In people's gardens the trees are trimmed for shape, like in front of the house I showed you yesterday. Along the roads the trees are just trimmed to keep them from interfering with the power and telephone lines and to keep the root system small. Apparently the roots do not spread out much further than the tips of the branches. In places where there are no utility lines so the trees are not trimmed, the sidewalks are extremely bumpy because of the roots of the trees.
Turning in the opposite direction, there is an interesting fence separating the empty store from the sushi shop. It has wooden posts and bars that are connected by vertical slates of bamboo. In addition to the bamboo there is some sort of dried reed between the slates and the bars on the side nearest the empty store. The impression that it makes is that you are somewhere out in the countryside, however, the lights advertising the sushi shop do spoil the atmosphere a bit.
On Thursday morning it was very cold, near zero degrees C, and the air was extremely clear and crisp. The sun was low on the horizon and but was intensely lighting the upper portions of the buildings. It was also the cause of some beautiful colors in the sky. The picture does not do it justice. I was tempted to just stand there and enjoy the view, but I had to get to the station so that I would not miss my bus.