Jim O'Neil's photos

Charcoal & water soluble crayon

At one time this temple/monastery/fortress atop Mt. Hiea, above Kyoto, housed thousands of sobei, warrior monks, who were the bane of Emperor Go-Shirakawa. Now, in spite of a constant stream of tens of thousands of visitors, it's a quiet, tranquil, place... except for the reverberations of the bell, of course. ;-)

OK, Shoicisan's wife, Harukosan, is around 74 years old now and I think he's a bit older. The book in front of him records pilgrimages to the the 88 temples strung around the island of Shikoku and the red stamps on the page note each time he's visited that specific temple. This is a pilgrimage that few people do once in a life time let alone 9 or 10 times! BTW: Back in the early 70's an American, Gail Lee Bernstein. wrote a book called "HARUKO'S WORLD, A Japanese Farm Woman and Her Community." about Shoichisan and his wife, Haruko (OK, OK, it's really about Haruko!). Damn good read, available from Amazon & I'm reading it now. Having spent a very very pleasant evening with them (even if he did want me to drink too much whiskey with him), the book is especially enjoyable.

Kami, in many Japanese/English dictionaries, is often translated as god, -but that's way off the mark. Kami are closer to the elemental spirits of the west than anything else, -but not exactly the same. So! We were climbing this mountain when we came across this little shrine. Now kami is among the over 30000 kanji (Chinese pictographs) that I don't now, -but as soon as I saw it I knew it was the mountain spirit's shrine!

You know what koi are, what more need be said? OK, they were at a temple in Tokyo and if you ask, I'll tell you which one. :-)

Subsequently I did this sumi-e (Japanese ink & brush painting). The last couple of days I've been trying to do a bull in sumi-e but all my attempts end up producing a cute, rather than fierce animal. Maybe that's understandable as I've just returned from over a month in modern day Japan, -where cutesy rules! Ink on 9"X13" hand made "rice" paper (washi) that I just brough back from Japan.

I was just quickly trying to catch the mood right after sundown.

You pull up to the pump... immediately 4 kids are there pumping your gas, washing all your windows, -not just the windshield, etc., etc., and then stopping traffic on the highway so you can pull out easily.

I see fewer beer and sake vending machines on the streets but a lot are still around.

Walking the evening streets of Fukui, I saw...

Back in the mountains behind Matsuyama.

High on the hill overlooking the city.

This is my friend Kumiko's 94 year old mother. Kumiko got her a sketch book and, since she had a stroke, she's relearning to draw with her left hand. Ha Ha, by the way, is nihongo, is Japanese, for mother.

Another of the many water falls.

The train that serves Umenomoto runs on a single track. At some, not all, of the stations the rail splits at the stations so that trains running in opposite directions can pass each other. Timing is everything!

Near Kanazawa

enough said

I gave this one to my friend's. Eiko's, mother.