Under the spreading maple trees.
The bright red Japanese maples (紅葉 momiji) are without compare. Of all the autumn colors, they stand out the most. They go best when contrasted with the brilliant golden ginkgo (銀杏1, ichō), but are still gorgeous by themselves.
For the Japanese poetry lovers among us, momiji by itself is a kigo for late autumn. My saijiki2 mentions that momiji viewing parties began in the Heian period, which incidentally is also when cherry blossom viewing parties stared to be a thing.
This photo from Rokusho Shrine, which I previously introduced. There is a high school nearby, so school-kids are constantly going through this area. Not much of a secret place, unfortunately, but a beautiful one.
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Usually written with katakana instead of kanji: イチョウ. Easier to write that way, though much less interesting to kanji lovers like myself. ↩
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A saijiki is a book or books (sometimes several volumes long) that contains a listing of kigo—season words—for use in haiku, divided by season, along with example haiku for each word and brief description. ↩