OSAKA -- Visit Yoshisune Nagamine at his office beside Osaka Castle and you're in for a surprise.
As is the case at most Japanese offices, the guest is greeted warmly, ushered into a waiting room and brought hot tea by an office lady. Nagamine's office, however, is not a plush modern building but a makeshift tent with battered furniture serving as the waiting room. A metal trash can stuffed with burning wood serves as a stove.
Neither is the office lady of the designer handbag brigade. Providing the tea is an elderly homeless woman who belongs to Tomo no Kai, a volunteer group formed by Nagamine and run for the homeless of Osaka Castle Park.