Back to Africa...

...and it's the rainy season; which as it happens is a wonderful thing. Lush greens are shining now rather than dampened by a layer of thick rust coloured dust. Never ending blue blue skies are broken up by the crisp white of cumulonimbus, heavy and pregnant with rain. The crumpled landscape, with its many rocky hills and soft velvety green surfaces has wisps of cloud clinging to it in the early morning. Milky light and cool, damp air greets me as I look out on to One Tree Hill sipping my bitter pre-office-wake-me-up coffee.


Butterflies of every colour and size skitter over the flower petals as I eat freshly baked French bread (just 15p a loaf), Emmental cheese (costs the same as all my weeks supply of fruit and veg from the market put together) and mangos for my lunch.


And on my way home, les Dents de Man, bites at the horizon, challenging me to clamber up its rock face as many expats have before me.

The torrents of rainfall leave behind them rainbows, sparkling drops of precipitation weighing down spiders' webs and twinkling flower petals.


Everything is fresh and spotless, God has done his spring cleaning here in Man.

I saw a sign....

Of course, all this gadgetry is accompanied by some pretty funny 'signage' (as the Americans would call it) when they try to translate from Japanese into English. A sample of the contradictory signs from the toilets in the shinkansen, bullet train is attached.


Please, even if you don't have child, try to find a diaper so we can put our special bin to good use...


Forget what we see in West Africa, this here is a real child protection issue – there are huge black scary cats prowling the area.

Some doggy/pet control signs.

• Pink rabbit/bear/dog pets are not allowed to fart in this area?

• Hmm - Do you think anyone saw me do that?

And then some from the construction sites:

• Don’t go a step further – this is a construction site, but of course you are welcome if you turn left …

• Mind you, really it is a dangerous building site, even if you do turn left, things can fall down from above. But maybe a big pile of planks falling from the sky is "A OK"
  

And some other random ones I just had to snap.

• Instructions on how to use a toilet seat...

• And you thought the streets were the only place left for smokers - not here!
  

I saw a shrine

Shrines, temples and castles, Shinto, Buddhist and samurai abound in all cities, hills and mountains in Japan. They are covered in gold leaf, topped with tiled swirling roofs, surrounded by VIP (?) moss, raked silver sand, golden carp-filled ponds and bonsai-ed trees.

Kinkaku-Ji

VIP Moss - I don't know what it is either

Everything is spotless clean and in order, shoes are taken off at all the entrances, people follow orderly lines and voices are hushed. Wishes and prayers are tied to twigs and branches. Prayers and chanting are accompanied by a choreographed series of claps and bows.

Prayers with flying pigs

If wishes were rain...

Origami wishes

The gardens are a haven of tranquillity where the plants, trees and moss growth, size and direction is controlled; bonsai on a giant scale - all of it is very beautiful. Large-lensed Nikons abound (here I am not out of place or asking to be mugged as I am in Côte d’Ivoire) and packs of Japanese tourists with fingers in V’s pose at every corner and step.

"V" is for...victory? VIP?

National Treasure: The sound of birds twittering accompanies your every step as you tread the floor boards of this samurai castle’s corridors. I could not believe that the birdsong I was hearing was being created by the footfall of the line of tourists marching around the castle in a regimented line, “It must be a tape recording" I was thinking to myself. So to test this creation I stayed on one floorboard until the coast was clear and gently rocked from one foot to the other to see if it was indeed my body weight creating the sound.

How the floors work

“National treasure, national treasure” squealed a lady in uniform. I was being told off like a little girl on a school trip, I had to walk on quickly and hang my head in shame as all the other tourists looked at me and tut-tutted. But at least now I had confirmed it was true; the joists and floorboards were designed to recreate the nightingales’ song so that the samurai inside could detect the steps of any intruders, so sophisticated a system that they could even pinpoint the intruder’s location based on the pitch and tone of the sound. This is one very special palace, Nijo-jo, in Kyoto.

Detail of the roof