If you've been following my last few posts, you should have already seen that things are still looking quite colorful here in Japan. The fall colors are in full swing and even in our region there are still a lot of leaves on the trees and bushes. At home, it's already quite gray and bare these days and everything looks rather dull, but fortunately it's not quite that bad over here yet.

Even if everything doesn't look quite as fresh as at other times of the year, you can still find an amazing amount of green around you. And not just in the woods and parks, there's still plenty growing in the fields too. If you look closely, you quickly realize that there are still quite some vegetables growing at this late time of year.

In particular, there are various types of cabbage and radishes, which are now making their last appearance and are not deterred by the first snow, which is expected in December at the latest. Cabbage also seems to feel quite at home under a thick layer of snow, where it then just has to be discovered and picked.

But it's not just green that can still be discovered all around, you can't avoid orange either. When I was still new here in the Land of the Rising Sun, I thought that there would be mandarins growing all over the place, but I was soon proved wrong. These are persimmons, and there really are a lot of these trees in this part of the country.

That's why it's popping up everywhere these days, as many of the persimmon trees are no longer being harvested. There are probably far too many for it to be worthwhile, and unfortunately you can't just eat this fruit straight from the tree. In order to be edible, the fruit must first be soaked in alcohol, and very few people go to the trouble of doing this themselves. And that's why it will probably continue to glow orange from the trees for quite a while, a sight that I have grown quite fond of. It's simply part of this time of year and somehow the many persimmons on the trees make for a good mood. At least it works quite well for me...