Youkoso!   Welcome!

This site displays examples from around 400 Japanese calligraphy pages (goshuin,   御朱印). They were inscribed in my "red seal books" (shuinchou ), also called pilgrimage books (sampaichou), at various Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Japan from Kagoshima in the south to Wakkanai and Rishiri Island in the north.

Other albums now being shown are photos of Japanese traditional dance in New York City, some early 20th-century postcards, and one of my favorite monuments in Japan. There is also a page on Miyazawa Kenji, which is still in progress.
 
These pages do not require a Japanese font, but some of the links do open Japanese-language web pages. Such links are flagged with the character: .

Japanese kanji characters used on these pages will gradually be converted from images to Unicode (like the above example).

(See also some miscellaneous notes about browsing.)
 

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Japanese 20th-century Western-style plate with favorite insects (dragonfly, cicada, cricket, katydid, praying mantis, ladybug, firefly, mayfly, honeybee, plus a sort of swallowtail butterfly [this one perhaps an artist's creation?]) and a pond frog and a land snail [shell shown with only 2 spirals instead of the real-life three].
The plate is inscribed Dai-Nippon and the manufacturing firm name [still to be read].

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small MIDI file: Mizu no inochi

MP3 file: Haru no yayoi (aka Etenraku imayou)

Odorou odorou "let's dance" — with friends in Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
Totems: fox, tiger, raccoon, rabbit.

| Albums |

Greetings for 2025