Japan is known by all Japanese as the only country in the world that has four distinct seasons. Since I have lived other places, I can be pretty sure that this is not quite true. We just finished what was supposed to be summer. It was so wet, the crops rotted in the fields, the cost of produce was nearly double, or more for most vegetebales. Floods ripped through towns killing people, washing out brideges, expressways and drownding beer gardens. It wasn’t cold exactly, but it was wet, humid and the sunshine did lack some of the qualitites that you associate with it. (that warm toasty feeling, that wonderful thing it does by getting things to dry out, prevent mildew from growing, you know, sunshine tasks that you kind of take for granted.)
It did get hot and humid though. I did survive with only electric fans and uchiwa and sensu to prevent melting. I admit, I did go to the shopping mall a few times, I did spend a little extra time just standing around department stores, but all in all, it wasn’t that bad.
Maybe we aren’t in the middel of Global Warming. Maybe we should call it Solar Soaking.
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