Back from my adventure to the North - got all the way to Shimokita-Hanto in Aomori, the most Northern point of Honshu, where I visited Osore-san - the place to go when you want to "commune with the dead". Fascinating place. More on all that later. For now, it's enough to say that I'm back in Tokyo, safe and sound, with many hundreds of photos to edit and a website to redesign. Posts will be spare.

This photo was taken at a small ornamental pond on the grounds of Mutsu-Ji temple in Hiraizumi, in Iwate prefecture - I was lucky, everywhere I went, these beautiful Lotus flowers were blooming magnificently for the first time in 4 years.