Put your wickets here

Look very closely

It happened to me again last weekend, not that I was really surprised.  After five years in Japan it’s happened so many times in so many places that the only thing I note now is how novel it was.  Sometimes I wonder if they do it on purpose, to see our reaction, [...]

Quiet.

My eyes snapped open as the second in a long series of sharp thumps emanated from the wall beside my head, orange lamps were still glowing visibly through the mesh canopy in the early morning light.  It was 5am and time for the monks to do their rounds at the temple, including swinging the heavy [...]

Sleeping with the dead

The mesh canopy of my slim one man tent made it easy to view the numerous orange and gold glowing lanterns suspended above my head. The sound of rain steadily dripping down through the branches of the massive cedar trees towering above me from a storm recently past and the babbling of a brook [...]