Making my way back to Kamakura Station after tossing a few plates at the Dish-Breaking Shrine, I was walking through a totally normal-looking neighborhood when I chanced upon this.
A hedge. But not just any old hedge – isn’t this the freakin’ unfriendliest alt picket fence you’ve ever seen? I mean, it’s all thorns, all the time. No leaves. No flowers. Just thorns. And wicked sharp too!
I admit, I had to kind of admire the cussedness of whoever owns the house. If nothing else, growing this thing took huge dedication, and a near-legendary level of anti-neighborliness. We’re talking years of nurturing and pruning. Which kind of suggests it’s not just a case of the casual paranoia that might inspire a homeowner to zip over to Prison Surplus Razor Wire Inc. for a little fence topper.
Kind of perversely made me want to loiter around and see who lives here. Or better yet, who lives next door?
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Jonelle Patrick writes novels set in Japan, produces the monthly e-magazine Japanagram, and blogs at Only In Japan and The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had
Only In Japan 
It’s bitter orange, if you were wondering. It’s a very strange plant.
http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2012/06/that_twisty_thorny_plant_with.html
Wow, interesting! Thank you for ferreting out the name of this plant! Now I’d like to go visit it in the season when the thorns are disguised by leaves and fruit – apparently, I chanced upon it in winter, when it was at its most forbidding. (Or is it worse that in many seasons those serious pointy bits are disguised by leaves and fruits? O_O)
aka Flying Dragon. I have one in my front yard!
Wait, YOU have one of these? Uh, it’s not surrounding your house in a forbidding hedge, is it?
Good one, Jonelle. I’ve been cooking a post on how the Japanese can be so much more human than we give them credit for, then this popped up. There are always exceptions, no?
I’m looking forward to reading YOUR post, to restore my faith in humanity!