Lone But Tall

Today I visited a stone shop, to see what I could see and maybe pick out a gift for someone.  It looked to be within walkable distance on the map, so I set out on foot despite the afternoon heat.  As it turned out though, the place was a disappointment.  The stones displayed for sale were not all that interesting overall -- in fact I can say they were really kind of "meh" -- but as I left the shop feeling I'd wasted the whole sweaty trip, I saw this lone tall flower and immediately realized the trip had not been a waste after all.

Stone Eye

Whether it's natural, or someone was inspired by the shape of the breakage in the stone to fill in the iris/pupil, it was startling in any case.

Makes one think of the animistic belief about spirits residing in everything in nature.

Related posts:  I Think A Dryad Lives In This Tree

                         Seen In A Seoul Alley

                         Dryad

An Unusual Rock

This is one of my prized possessions.  Known in Korea as suseok (수석 --"water stone", aka "scholar's stone"), these rare stones are fantastically shaped or have naturally occurring imagery embedded in them, and being considered minor miracles of nature, can fetch high prices among collectors.  The most valuable specimens actually command prices ranging in the hundreds of thousands of US dollars!  This particular stone was not nearly so expensive (obviously, since I was able to afford it), but its fascinatingly landscape-like "view" is quite genuine.  Perhaps in ancient times people would have considered these miniature worlds to be proof of the earth's power of spontaneous generation.