Wakō-shi and Ikebukuro–March 21, 2016

Today I took one of the subway lines to the end, a city called Wakō-shi. These are from the area right near the station.

happy veggie bowl stone plaque wakoshi station area painting above store

So, I just wandered away from the station, and here are the things that caught my eye, in the order that I saw them.

restaurant storefront animal sculpture in front of restaurant fence with japanese characters

house w japanese roof tiles and tree japanese roof backyard truck with panda logo

Here’s something you will almost never see in California: a traffic light mounted horizontally instead of vertically. Apparently the standard is red on the right rather than on the left, as Japan drives on the opposite side of the road as the US does.

horizontal traffic light

So all of a sudden I get to this little area that appears to be a nature preserve of some sort. The last picture is of a house with some serious overgrowth of vegetation on the roof.

entrance to wooded area woods entrance to woods metal barricade with metal birds bamboo fence stairway to woods Plant with white edges on leaves and white flowers. tree roots thatched roof

Back to the residential/commercial area:

japanese trees whimsical sculptures whimsical sculptures house with japanese writing

And then, all of a sudden, I see another temple. You’d think I would have been all templed out after yesterday, but this was smaller and more manageable, and better for photos than the over-photographed, somewhat tourist-y temple in Asakusa.

temple entrance red flowers temple roof pink roses large and small old shrines small statue view of temple from above shrine view of temple from above stones with japanese writing flowers at foot of stone

As I left, I saw this sign. I have no idea what the text says, but I am pretty sure it’s a warning of some sort.

signage wasp warning

And then, back to city life and a bridge over a small river, with a path beside it. The fence is very cleverly constructed; from the side it looks solid, but when you go past it, you see it isn’t.

sign on blue metal fence solid seeming fence not really solid fence

Before doing the river walk, I stopped at a store called Nitori across the street. It’s a large (as in Home Depot sized) home furnishings place. Now that doesn’t seem remarkable, but when you consider how you couldn’t build something like this in Central Tokyo, you realize how Wakō is fairly far out from the main town and it’s possible here.

nitori store

The river itself isn’t very remarkable, but I did see some signs along the way, as well as an interesting tree. I have no idea what kind of tree it is. (Who do I look like, Luther Burbank?) Even though I can’t read Japanese, I’d be willing to bet cash money that the last sign is something about watching out for children at play.

signage pets tree with green fruits signage keep pets leashed river view signage children playing

From all these pictures, you can see that Wakō-shi is a pretty much working class city. You can see that by the fact that people are drying their laundry on the balcony. I also passed a shop selling bicycles; the prices are a real bargain.

clothes drying on balcony bike store

Just a note: a lot of these pictures were taken after I became totally lost in my attempts to get back to the metro station. It took about an hour of wandering around and asking people; finally the staff at a golf supply store gave me the hints I needed to find my way back. Of course, if I hadn’t gotten lost, I would not have seen these cherry blossoms:

cherry blossoms cherry blossoms

Cute Signage

This being Japan, there was plenty of that around. The second one is a logo for a transport company, and the third is on a traffic sign above a main road.

signage cartoon cat with sweatband logo cat carrying kitten Cartoon bird on traffic sign for Saitama prefecture

Manhole/Utility Covers

Yes, more of those, too, and some of them quite colorful.

manhole cover manhole cover fire dept manhole cover manhole cover fire dept manhole cover painted

Ikebukuro

On the way back, I had to switch to a different subway line at the Ikebukuro station. By chance, I went out the south exit and found the Tokyo Community Art Space. A note about the last two pictures: next to the sculpture is a group of people who were rehearsing some a capella vocals, and I saw the ventriloquist practicing in an area off to the side and he was kind enough to let me take his photo.

art space sculpture art space sculpture art space sculpture art space sculpture art space sculpture ikebukuro building decorated trash receptacle decorated utility box half-human, half-oriental-lion with child sculpture Oriental lion sculpture with human face blue painted utility box art space sculpture painted utility box marble with reliefwork reflective sculpture art space sculpture japanese ventriloquist holding dummy

Before going back to the station, I went into the Seibu department store, which has one floor devoted to candy and pastries. You can gain 10 pounds and lose US$100 just by looking at the stuff.

kitkat chocolatory in seibu history of kitkat display fine chocolates fine pastries cake display

Today’s Signage

A very clever advert for some sort of drink made from apples (it was on the train), and from Wakō-shi, a recycling chart and a sign that I am sure will strike fear into the hearts of evildoers everywhere.

subway ad suntory apple drink signage recycling chart signage no criminals allowed in this area