UPDATED: J-ster requested Osore-san Wallpaper, thought I'd share it: 1280 x 854; 1024 x 768; 800 x 600; 640 x 480.

Osore-san in Aomori-Ken is a dormant volcano with little sulphur geysers bubbling up through the weird, craggy white rocks... the temple there, Bodai-ji sits on the banks of a lake with white sand. An amazing place, and I will be writing something of a photo essay about the place in a little while, so stay tuned. In the mean time, this will do - lifted from the The "Japan Death Map".

This mountain scared people so much that its name became the Japanese word for ‘dread’. It’s a desolate, hellish place that smells of sulfur and has attractions like ‘The Lake of Blood’. There’s a still, eerie volcanic lake and there are very few plants and trees among the gravel and rocks. The grey and brown scenery is broken occasionally by colourful Buddhist statues and children’s toys, but unfortunately they are offerings to departed souls. The mountain is one of three in Japan that are famous as places to commune with the dead, and from July 20-24th and October 9-10th, blind shaman women known as itako gather here for a festival where people come for séances. Osore-san is in Aomori prefecture in Northern Japan.

More from Osore-san

Went for a dawn walk in Miyako, on the Iwate coast. Beautiful.

Jodo-ga-hama in Miyako, Iwate.

And after that went for a ride on a boat with a lovely Italian man and his Japanese wife.

The sea birds here are huge.

Festival time in Japan, every one gets in on the act - even the dogs. This one is wearing a custom made Yukata - a summer kimono.

This delightful gentleman turned out to be the master of ceremonies for the Mutsu Matsuri (Festival) and was the most sweet-hearted man I met on my travels.

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I'm back at work at the school in just over 10 days, and things are looking really busy for me for the next month. I won't be posting much at all, so these pics in this post will have to do you for a while. You may have noticed that I have deleted almost all my gallery albums, to make way for the new design which will appear, hopefully, in about a months time, but yeah, I'm gonna be pretty busy so that time line may be a little ambitious... Anyway, just wanted to warn you that it's gonna be pretty quiet around here for a while.