For Now, The Sun

For now, Toyota City is bathed in sunshine. I wake up, throw open the curtains to my small deck, slide the glass door aside and the morning pours in: crisp a hint of flowers, birdsong, and shining sun. Even so, I've been living with vague anxiety of the inevitable change. The rainy season is coming. An entire month of dreary, humid days where the sky alternates between leaking and pouring. After that, the heat. Imagine Florida in summer, except no airconditioning, at least not at my schools, which is of course where I am during the hottest part of the day. So at this point, I am living in a beautiful bubble soon to be broken by rain, the pieces of which to then be further dissolved by oppressive heat.

According to my flashcards the rainy season is in June. So from June first, I've been opening my deck and breathing a sigh of relief. Not yet, I've said, turning my face up into the sun. But soon. At Kosema yesterday, I found out the rainy season actually begins in the second week of June and continues on until (or possibly through) the first week or so of July. Worse, it is “abunai” (dangerous) to bike in this mess (at least according to my coworkers), so for a string of rainy days I am constrained to the limits of Japan's (albeit exceptional) public transportation system. If this is actually the case, not only does this mean a switch for me to the bus, but it means that everyone will be switching to the buses and trains (that would ordinarily bike), so it's gonna be humid, wet, sticky and CROWDED. But, as this is Japan, even so things will be very polite and organized. At least I won't have to deal with the soggy alcoholic with the aura of urine that makes Philadelphia trains and buses so exciting.

I am hoping, as with many things in life, that the anticipation of the event is far more powerful than the event itself. Like with Natto. And for now, best to live it up. Bike, run and be merry, for tomorrow we shall be inside. Doing Karaoke. So it's not all bad.

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For more of Vash's adventures in Japan and onwards, check out: http://vashabroad.blogspot.com