Summer Sucks!
I’m British so don’t fare so well in high humidity, which is what summer in Japan has in abundance. Once the rainy season comes to a close (end of June roughly), the heat ratchets up and the humidity goes to sauna levels. And my productivity levels plummet…
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It’s tough to sleep some nights as the air is so oppressive. It just doesn’t move, not even a glimmer of a breeze some nights. At some point I fall asleep but wake in the morning feeling as if I have come out of a deep hibernation (that wasn’t particularly restful) and the Sandman has dumped a JCB’s shovel-worth of gunk in my eyes. My coffee intake goes up in the summer; in England it was the opposite.
And then I don’t seem to get much done in the day. Twiddling my thumbs really.
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One way to beat the heat is to get the pool out. If beer-belly and money were no issue, I believe I’d spend each day sipping cold ones while submerged in the paddling pool out on the wood-deck. But alas, such utopian visions will never come to pass.
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Air-conditioning is the only way to go when the mercury hits the upper 30s and the humidity is 80-90%. Friends here say it wasn’t like this when they were children. Summer was shorter (it now seems to creep sweatily into October) and the highs were just over 30. But what do they know?! Climate change is a hoax, right!
So slap the AC on and entertain ourselves within the home.
I have been mostly selecting photos from the summers of 2010 and 2011 for this post. Tomoki was a few months old in 2011 and Haruki three. Looking back at these memories makes me wonder how much summer really does suck. Browsing through snaps of yesteryear in a cool room, no sweat dripping, no gasping for air and no photos of crappy times. I think this is why photographs tend to be kinder viewing than watching home videos (jerky camera, hearing your own weird-ass voice and the general over-long nature of them). So, does summer really suck? Hmm… Probably for the best I don’t have photos of my three summers working in schools. They only introduced AC into the classrooms in my last year. I changed all my clothes (shirt, trousers, vest , underwear) three times a day; once when I arrived at the school dripping in sweat, again at break-time soaked to the skin, then once more at lunch. Laundry every evening. Damn, that was gruelling.
But on the brighter side!
You have the festivals…
You have nature getting jiggy…
You have a different cuisine…
Well, when I started writing this blog, I really was going to charge into a rant about I hate summer here. But after seeing the good memories, I have to temper my British Grumpiness. Yes, summer is a slog in Japan and the heat can really get you down, but I guess you have to find your coping mechanisms (air-con, pool, beer, camping, hiking in the mountains, going to England!! ha ha!…etc.).
And in general, heading down Memory Lane every now and then is well worth the time. Still scenes of the good times and none of the daily grind that comes between them. So add that to the list of ways to deal with summer: AC on, coffee in hand and then start browsing through the thousands of digital photos just sitting on your PC.
I shall sign off here before I bore you all to death… Hello, anybody out there? Keep cool, people!
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