The end of the walk

 Scenes like this are quite common. This is a garden. Because most houses have very little, if any open land around them, people who want a garden have to raise the plants in pots.

 Almost home, I walked along the back of the Shinkansen repair yard. This passenger car is sitting on blocks and appears to be used for training crew members.

I got home and discovered that my wife had hung this in our living room. The master at the Chinese/French restaurant that we like gave it to us. It is a dried branch of a reed that is a relative of bamboo (I think) with a paper saying that it came from the Ebisu Shrine. Ebisu is the Shinto god of business. Supposedly it should help improve our financial situation.