Japan 2007 - spring

just outside the door

This is the room where I stayed at the Zen center. It's not in the temple itself but in an lovely old farmhouse just down the road.

cards from some of the kids at the Kansai Seido dojo

The Hiroshima bomb exploded just about over this building, which is now maintained as a memorial.

At Basho's ancestral home, in Iga Ueno

a marching band from a local university, on a Tuesday night in Kyoto.

on the shore of Lake Biwa

At the grave of haiku master Matsuo Basho, in Otsu, near Lake Biwa.

group of large tanuki figures. The tanuki, a sort of racoon-dog, is a trickster figure in Japanese folklore, known for his love of sake and his large testicles.

It's interesting that I've seen these figures at some Zen temples.

At haiku poet Mukai Kyorai's grave, noted for it's small (~40 cm high) gravestone.