Unusual weather from summer through autumn

Though it is almost the end of November, the temperature was 18 degrees in the daytime today. We have had a warm autumn after an extraordinarily hot summer. Obviously, global warming is progressing.

As I wrote in my blog, I visited the art museum at the end of October. Then I thought of taking pictures in the park behind the museum at the beginning of December. I expected to see beautiful autumn leaves there, but it turned out impossible.

The park is called Hamamatsu Castle Park. It has a large Japanese garden and is sometimes called Central Park in Hamamatsu. Usually, leaves of maple trees there turn red at this time of year, so I went there today to see how they looked like. To my disappointment, they looked dull, not glowing red.

First, I thought it was because the temperature had been too high. But according to the website of the park, it was salt damage caused by the typhoon. At the beginning of October, a strong typhoon hit this area. It caused a power outage for more than 780,000 households in Shizuoka Prefecture, which took seven days to recover completely. I didn’t experience it myself because I was traveling and not at home.

There were, however, other plants that had beautiful leaves or flowers as usual. The bamboo trees are always green.

There were also Camellia sasanqua.

And Japanese silverleaves.

In addition, I found something unexpected.

They were some sort of citrus fruits and looked beautiful (and delicious) against the blue sky. It was the most refreshing view in the park.