There are loads of flowers hanging around at the moment, it’s that time of the year isn’t it.  I think I might have said this before but it is almost impossible to avoid flowers in Japan.  If you don’t like flowers, have seriously bad hay fever or a irrational fear of petals then I don’t think Japan is the place for you.  I have no serious medical issues with flowers myself (a little bit of hay fever now and again), but I do find flowers less interesting than insects.  Nevertheless, I can appreciate the effect they have on people, particularly the Japanese public.  For that reason, I always enjoy visiting flowering sites because the enthusiasm is contagious!  The other day I was taken on lovely little trip up a 峠 to a spot for viewing つつじ, Tsutsuji or Azalea as most people know them (perhaps):

You can see the pink area is labelled つつじ.  We parked at the bottom-middle of the pink area.  There was a toilet, a car park, some oil drums filled with water for firefighting and a series of empty spooky benches.

Unfortunately, the flowers weren’t blooming.  It was too early.

So, instead using unsophisticated digital technology I recreated the scene exactly as it might look (in a week or so):

There were other people who had been tricked.  Everyone was walking around in a kind of daze, with confused eyes.  One family was eating a picnic, another man was pretending to walk his dog (‘I knew the flowers weren’t blooming – I’m just here to walk my dog’).  I spotted another man taking a picture of a picture of the view:

I had a closer look at the sign and it really was worthy of a photograph.

Look how accurately the sign reproduces the view:

I realise that I prefer the sign to the actual real view.  Having mountains labelled is so convenient.
On the way back down the hill, we spotted a spring and with the holy mountain mizu, cleansed our tears (huh?)

Someone had forgotten to eat their onigiri.  What a waste.

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Later that day after recovering from the disappointment we decided to take a trip that would guarantee some petals: an indoor orchid fest.
Walking around I spotted lots of poster featuring the same person.  His benign but slightly sinister smile made me feel uneasy, queasy.  I suppose it could have been the smell of the flowers.

He seemed to be the Lord of the Flowers.  Whether or not he had single-handedly cultivated all these orchids I’m not sure, but I did get that impression.  He managed to make brown flowers:

And his masterpiece, the giant crown, valued at a cool 2000000 yen:

Beautiful work Flower Lord!