June 27 marked the end of the raining season or 梅雨(Tsuyu) in many prefectures in Japan including Tokyo where the rainy season ended 21 days earlier than the previous year. It is the earliest day for tsuyu to end in record. What I learned this week is that tsuyu season was created to warn any … Continue reading Caution hot! Japan’s sudden summer heat wave
Where did the year go? I cannot believe it's already September and that means summer is officially over in Japan once again. With the extended 梅雨(tsuyu or the rainy season)🌧, although the sudden change felt uncomfortable, it has been a relatively short spurt of hot weather. The nights has started to cool down and September … Continue reading Personal best of Japanese summer 2020
Monday was a Mountain Day, another public holiday in Japan so we headed 2 hours north west from central Tokyo to 奥多摩 (Okutama) for some cooling riverside air and openness, while still being within Tokyo. 🌳🌳🌳 So much greenery! 🌳 🌳🌳 Riding the rapid Chuo line took us to the most outer edge of Tokyo … Continue reading Is this really Tokyo? Cooling off in Okutama
June 1 officially marks the start of summer and it's started to feel like it too. How can I tell? Here are the 5 signs that we've noticed that summer is approaching Japan: Rain 🌧 June was called "水無月" (Minaduki, characters meaning water, nothing, moon/month) and apparently it meant that it's a month of rain. Sure … Continue reading 5 Signs that summer is approaching Japan
Since moving to Japan at the start of the year from Australia, this has been one of the longest time that I haven’t seen or swum in an ocean - until the last weekend. We visited the closest beach resort area from Tokyo called 熱海 (Atami) 🏖 which took around 2 1/2 hours on a … Continue reading The Japanese way of swimming at the beach
This weekend is another long weekend in Japan and this time, we get a day off to appreciate mountains and its blessing where the public holiday is quite simply called, 山の日(Mountain Day) 🗻. What is Mountain Day? There isn’t too much history with this public holiday as it is the newest public holiday in Japan. … Continue reading August Japanese public holiday: Mountain Day and Obon
Native Expat 