Before and After

Hickory Boulevard is a long road running along the Gulf of Mexico on a skinny peninsula in Bonita Springs on the way to Fort Myers Beach.  Hurricane Ian really slammed it in 2022.  Many properties were badly damaged or destroyed.  Yesterday I decided to see how it is doing now.

I was surprised to see that some of the small older buildings have been repaired, but even more have been replaced by tall new multi-story buildings.. 

All of the new buildings have garages or tear-away structures on the first floor, so when future hurricanes land, the raging ocean will pass through lower levels designed to take the hits.  Living areas are up above.

And, given the high cost of acquiring waterfront land, tearing down the old structures and building new ones strong enough to withstand hurricanes and comply with ever-tightening building codes, the new ones are much bigger and more expensive than the ones they replaced.

Halloween

 

It seems like the Halloween skeletons get bigger every year.

Fall Foliage

I left Connecticut for Florida before peak foliage.  My daughter tells me that this is the best year for fall color in Connecticut in a long time.  Pictures from Naples start tomorrow.

 

Scarecrows

 In Connecticut for just a few days before heading south.  

Ridgefield always has a scarecrow contest in October.  This year's contest was very good, as usual.

Ridgefield Pride sponsored a Dolly Parton scarecrow.

An electrical company had a good female electrician.

The Ridgefield Thrift Shop put a used tux on a scarecrow.

I don't know who did this one, but I like it.

A Cub Scout pack scored with this one.

The Statue of Liberty was an appropriate subject for the Chamber of Commerce.

Many of the Main Street merchants urge folks to Buy Local, and farmers want us to Pick Local.

The school at a local Methodist Church put together an excellent scarecrow.

Kyoto Tower

Kyoto Tower is the tallest structure in Kyoto.  It is across the street from Kyoto's very impressive train station and shopping arcade.  It can't be missed.

 

Kyoto Tower is even more striking at night, when it is lit.

And on our last night in Japan the tower was blazing red!

Well, I am now back in the USA, so it is time to end my Japan posts.  A few final observations:

        • Japan is mountainous.  Flat areas available for cities are few, so they are densely settled and people and houses are packed tightly together.

        • Many Japanese people wear all black or black and white.   It is a very conformist culture. It appears that they do not want to stand out.

        • Everything is strikingly neat.  I didn’t see a pothole in our 12 days in Japan.  We could eat off the sparkling floors.  One day I was looking out the window of a bus and saw a single piece of plastic blowing on a sidewalk.  It stood out because it was the only (very small) piece of trash I had seen in Japan.

Golden Pavilion

 Kinkakuji -- or the "Golden Pavilion" --  is a Zen temple in northern Kyoto whose top two floors are completely covered in gold leaf. 

The temple was the retirement villa of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu.  Under his will it became a Zen temple of the Rinzai sect after his death in 1408.

The Golden Pavilion has burned down and been rebuilt several times, most recently in 1950 when it was set on fire by a fanatic monk. The present structure was rebuilt in 1955.

Bamboo Forest, Thousand Torii and Thousand Buddhas

The Arashiyama Bamboo Grove is a delightful walking experience near Kyoto.  It is a pleasant uphill walk surrounded by very tall bamboo.  Like all Kyoto destinations, it can be very crowded.

Talk about crowded!  The Fushimi-Inari-Taisha Shrine is better known as the "Thousand Torii."  Torii are those tall red-orange gates that define Japan.  At this location outside Kyoto more than a thousand torii are lined up for walks up a gentle hill.  The torii near the start are very tall and thick, like those shown above.  Further on, the torii are thinner.  The crowds were so dense I cut out about halfway through.

The temple of Emperor Go-Shirakawa was built in 1164 east of Kyoto.  The temple, Sanjūsangen-dō, holds 1,001 statues of Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of compassion.   It is a very impressive sight.  Photographs are not permitted inside, so I bought a postcard and photographed it.