Nearing home

 This little lion like animal was protecting the gate of a home that I passed. This animal is called a shishi or karashishi, where shishi is translated as lion but it can also refer to other magical animals that ward off evil. Kara in the second version refers to the Tang Dynasty in China, because the idea was imported from China during that dynasty.

While the general practice in Japan is to name the spaces between roads, a few streets do have names, mostly adopted during the American Occupation. On this corner I found these signs giving the street names, Momiji dori and Akashiya dori. Dori means street and momiji refers to a maple tree. I thought akashiya referred to a kind of Japanese tree, but I can't find it in my dictionaries. I do know that it is a fairly common family name used by some famous TV personalities and cartoon characters..