I always love the touches of seasonality in Japan. Somehow they just make the whole landscape–urban or not–feel very alive to me. It may smack of sentimentality to say so, but I always feel that wherever I go in Japan, people are far more aware of the time of year and the traditions that naturally surround seasonality.

Case in point; plastic paraphenalia.

Once upon a time, folks might have used actual flowers and tree-branches to indicate the time of year. But now, it’s must easier to haul out the plastic gear. I snapped these photos in various train stations and markets; the pink decorations are meant to denote spring. Come summer, these will replaced by some other “seasonal foliage” and then around autumn, we’ll see some red leaves or some rabbits and the moon. Winter brings out New Year decorations, and then the whole thing starts over again in the spring. Whenever I point this out to Japanese friends and family they are bemused. “You mean, you don’t do the same thing in America?” No, I say. We really don’t.