The APEC meeting which will be held in Yokohama in November, makes news here in Odawara also. Same prefecture, same police force therefore same precautions, I suppose.
Odawara Station was rebuilt a few years ago and it looks completely different. Really nice. It stands up well against almost any other regional train station in Japan (in my opinion).
Two interesting things about this sign near a kindergarten: one is that parent teacher organizations in Japan are also called PTA, and this sign showing the directions to a bicycle parking lot show the pronunciation above the Chinese characters (showing that children of that age have yet to learn many Chinese characters).