Autumn in Japan

Autumn is my favourite season in Japan. It's not too hot like the summer with its extremely high humidity, or cold and barren (no snow in Osaka) like the winter, nor plagued by cedar pollen as the spring happens to be. Autumn here exists in an all too short Goldilocks zone and is all the more beautiful because of it.

The top image is of fallen Ginko leaves, they turn a brilliant bright yellow before falling to the ground and begining to decompose. The Ginko is an interesting tree, having two distinct genders, as such, in parks and areas within the city. You'll only find male trees, and the reason is quite apparent once the female trees start fruiting: While the inner seed of the fruit is used in a traditional Japanese dish called Chawanmushi, a kind of steamed custard pudding/quiche, there's usually just one of the small light green jelly bean-like seeds in each serving. The outer fruit rapidly rots on the branch and the ground once fallen and emits a stench very much like dog feces, trust me, it's revolting.

This autumn I visited Enmei Temple in the rural part of southern Osaka prefecture. While more famous and easier to access areas like Kyoto's Kyoumizu Temple and Nara's Nara Park are packed with people, there were relatively few visitors at this temple.

Maple leaves turn wonderfully bright shades of yellow and red! It's really quite remarkable how vivid the colours are!

A constellation of maple leaves across the sky.

Many prints and calligraphy drawings from east Asia depict trees quite differently than the roughly trianglular or single round 'tree' that is often in western children's books. They aren't fanciful or abstract interpretations of trees, some of the trees really do look that way.

One of many statues of Kannon that can be found on the trails of the temple grounds.

Detail of a rope, attached to a bell at one of the sub-shrines within the temple.

One benefit to having few visitors is that scenes like this can be preserved:

Thick fallen leaves, lichen and even plants adorn the top of a wall:

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