O-san "I love mountains"

"I like Toyama Park, because I can feel peaceful even though it is in the centre of Tokyo. I have lived in a lot of parks, but this one is the best for me. Another reason is that it is near the place you can get day labour, if you want it. But the job offers are not enough for the numbers of queuing people. We have no choice, because of the depression in Japan. There is no help; we just have to accept it. The North Korean residents�f situations are worse, because the employers generally choose Japanese people, so we should not complain about it.

Usually we try to not spoil the feelings in the park between the ordinary people and the homeless people. For example, if somebody urinated in the open park, not in a toilet - we put a stop to those kinds of bad habits. We are not allowed to walk in the children�fs playground in this park. The police say �gIt is to protect children from the homeless people." Of course, we don�ft want children to feel bad because us, so we stop any bad behavior towards the public that we see.

The police do impose some controls on us. They remove cardboard houses and tents on one day in the first week of every month, but it is just symbolic, it is not a practical thing at all. All the homeless in the park know about that day, so they just take down their houses for a day, and then they make their house again the next day. It is just a waste of time, nothing more. So why do the police keep on doing it?

I like mountains, and touring round old shrines on the mountains. It gives me peace. Especially, the Ontake shrine on Ontake Mountain is fantastic. Please visit there, it is not so far from central Tokyo.

Geoff�fs drawing of me is exactly like my father. When we get older, we grow to resemble our parents don�ft we? It is strange, isn�ft it?"

O-san is in his early 60s. He was in a relaxed mood, but, of course, definitely does not find it easy to sleep rough. It is rather that he is trying to find good things in his life by accepting the hardness of it.