I love the idea, but I would prefer invisible hot spots instead of text boxes and translucent boxes obsuring the image. But it is a wonderful idea for pointing out cultural tidbits that a redneck like me would never think to ask about. Just like anything else, the more I learn, the more questions I have. If I'm ignorant, I don't even realize what I'm missing.

Another beautiful geiko! What is that she's holding in her arm? I recognize the handbag, but not the other fabric bundle.

A tidy way of annotating images, plans etc, it should have plenty of uses. Very neat. Does it interfere with ordinary alt tags, and how would it affect assistive technology, eg a screen reader? Here in UK we are getting very concerned with accessible websites :o)

V, The plugin runs on Flash, and doesn't show the alt tag data, so it would definitely be an accessibility issue. This CSS solution might work, I don't know. More flavors here. I intend to use this plugin on the forever-in-development Kyotown tourist information site (currently in development using Geeklog), mainly annotating Kyoto maps and whatnot, so I'm not even going to try to work out the path problem with MT archive pages (go ahead and click above...nothing).

John, the hot spots disappear if you click the bottom right logo and then "hide" in the menu.

Tina, it's the bindle that they all carry, but I can't think of the Japanese name. I'll try to remember that.

Here's a guy who's done something similar in Japense and English. (chonta.web.infoseek.co.jp/henro/henro00.htm)He's retired and does pilrgimage hikes around Japan, and has some great cultural insights.

Tried with Safari 1.0.3 on Mac OS X. Did not download.