Here are a few more photos I have taken around town lately.

This fellow, photographed outside Minami-Tama station on the Nambu Line, is an excellent example of the transition in telecommunications. When I first came to Japan, many people depended on payphones; I did, from time to time. There was an array of public telephone types, with different colors and abilities for connections (remember trying to hunt down a phone booth that could dial internationally?). And the prepaid telephone telephone cards were a big deal, sometimes used as business cards, and sometimes sold “recycled” by shady characters atop train platform staircases.

Today, most people use their cell phones instead–and in the case of this guy, in exactly the same spot he’d use if speaking on a payphone.

Right after I took the shot of the fellow at the phone, a squad of female Kyudo archers came by. You see students like this from time to time, dressed in their traditional hakata pants and keiko-gi shirts (apparently the tabi shoes are optional). If you’d like to know a bit more about Kyudo, go here.