Talk about the weather
Ira here - A word about the weather..
Summer is probably the worst season weather-wise in Tokyo. It starts off in June with tsuyu - rainy season. As you might infer from its name, this is a five-week-or-so period in which it rains a lot. Generally with high temperatures. Very uncomfortable, but nothing compared with what's to come. Around the middle of July it eventually gives way to a brutally hot, humid stretch that lasts into late September. This is when the cicadas emerge from their dormancy and begin a daily serenade that begins around 4am and goes through to the next evening. These large bugs make a very loud buzz saw-like obnoxious noise that can drive you nuts after a while. It combines with the cawing of the huge crows co-inhabiting our neighborhood to make for a not-so-pleasant awakening too early each morning. Got an idea for a business - breed cicadas that taste good to crows that once eaten cause the crow to lose its voice.
Anyway, back to the humidity. It's really bad. Short walks outside result in drenched shirts. Do this a few times and you realize all of a sudden you're on your fourth layer of dried grime that day. And then try sleeping in it. Air conditioning, which I usually don't like while sleeping, is an absolute necessity, global warming notwithstanding. I've been avoiding looking at my electric bills all summer. There goes my cost-of-living adjustment.
So the last few days have been hellish. A typhoon (hurricane) has been making its way up from the tropics and has been pushing warm moist air ahead of it. If it's possible to have more than 100% humidity this is it. It's finally hitting us tonight, with loud, strong winds and horizontal rain. Never mind the umbrellas. Supposed to go on through tomorrow to the point where school might be canceled. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get any Japanese to commit to me with assurance that once this blows through the humidity will come down. Supposedly we've got another two-three weeks. Yuck.
After that the weather will be fine until next June. It'll get dry for the most part, and winter's not too bad. And the cicadas shut up.
Summer is probably the worst season weather-wise in Tokyo. It starts off in June with tsuyu - rainy season. As you might infer from its name, this is a five-week-or-so period in which it rains a lot. Generally with high temperatures. Very uncomfortable, but nothing compared with what's to come. Around the middle of July it eventually gives way to a brutally hot, humid stretch that lasts into late September. This is when the cicadas emerge from their dormancy and begin a daily serenade that begins around 4am and goes through to the next evening. These large bugs make a very loud buzz saw-like obnoxious noise that can drive you nuts after a while. It combines with the cawing of the huge crows co-inhabiting our neighborhood to make for a not-so-pleasant awakening too early each morning. Got an idea for a business - breed cicadas that taste good to crows that once eaten cause the crow to lose its voice.
Anyway, back to the humidity. It's really bad. Short walks outside result in drenched shirts. Do this a few times and you realize all of a sudden you're on your fourth layer of dried grime that day. And then try sleeping in it. Air conditioning, which I usually don't like while sleeping, is an absolute necessity, global warming notwithstanding. I've been avoiding looking at my electric bills all summer. There goes my cost-of-living adjustment.
So the last few days have been hellish. A typhoon (hurricane) has been making its way up from the tropics and has been pushing warm moist air ahead of it. If it's possible to have more than 100% humidity this is it. It's finally hitting us tonight, with loud, strong winds and horizontal rain. Never mind the umbrellas. Supposed to go on through tomorrow to the point where school might be canceled. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get any Japanese to commit to me with assurance that once this blows through the humidity will come down. Supposedly we've got another two-three weeks. Yuck.
After that the weather will be fine until next June. It'll get dry for the most part, and winter's not too bad. And the cicadas shut up.
Labels: Japan weather
posted by Katrina at
5:17 AM
3 Comments:
Interesting post, Ira. I've just come down from the U.P. this week at the end of the summer season on the Queen IV. The weather is so different down here. We had had several tastes of fall up in Copper Harbor before Labor Day, but down here it is as hot as summer. I'm not enjoying it, not until I get used to it, which takes a couple weeks. People down here don't seem to mind at all. I went for a walk in East Lansing yesterday, my second day back in southern Michigan. It was sunny, about 87, and mildly humid, and I was miserable. Everyone I met was commenting on how beautiful the day was.
Crows were waking me up every morning in Copper Harbor late in summer, by the way. They were loving the green crab apples falling off my apple trees, and so spending a lot of time in my yard. You might wish to tell us when the good weather comes in Japan.
Hi Ira and Trina,
Your last blog reminded me of the time back in the 80s when a Vietnamese woman, the new wife of a Mich. Tech professor, opened a "Chinese" restaurant in Calumet, the Golden Dragon. It was in a store front on Fifth Street and it was full of tacky decor. The first question out of the waitress' mouth was, "what do youse guys want?"
Anyway, Bob Olson, of radio fame up here, convinced me that the food was more Vietnamese than Chinese and he was probably right because it was wonderful; actually it was beyond wonderful.
We started going there often throughout the following months -- once we went three times in a week -- and always found it perfect.
Six or eight months after it opened it closed. The woman separated from her husband and left the area. We were devastated. I almost got over it but now you have re-kindled my interest in Vietnamese food.
Meet you for lunch in Hanoi.
Well, while you are all sweaty and hot it is 43 degrees and foggy here in gorgeous Golden Colorado. Tomorrow it is supposed to be in the seventies again! Fall in the Rockies, it's nothing if not unpredictable! Miss you.........Alix
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