When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads

Well, as some of you know from my incessant ranting on the subject, the summer months in Japan are also the infamous rainy season, which is later interrupted by the arrival of the typhoon season in late September. Usually, there's a bit of a break between the rainy and typhoon seasons, but it's hard to tell when the weather's going to let up. For the last two months it's been torrential on a few occasions here in Himeji and I must admit that it's starting to try my patience. How I long for the soft summer evenings of Algonquin Park and how a Canadian summer morning on my screened porch in Markham feels as the dew evaporates away.

Of course, looking at the photos I've posted up here, you probably don't believe a word of this.

Now I realize that my memories are quite selective. I hear that Toronto has been facing some pretty extreme summer weather lately. I shall nonetheless continue to roll about in the patch of nostalgia I've planted for myself because it just helps me get through the wet, wet summer I'm dealing with over here.



Summer does bring some good news with it, of course. Everyone's in the mood for the beach! While most of the beaches in the vicinity of Himeji are pretty polluted (in the name of industrial enterprise) and are thus somewhat unswimmable, there are a few places to escape to if you play your cards right. This past weekend was once again a truncated one-day weekend, but I managed to squeeze in a trip down to Tokushima for a surfing trip. I haven't gotten any better at it since last year, but I'm committed to practicing more this time around. It was a fun-filled and exhausting day to say the very least. I was pretty wiped by the end of the day, and it probably didn't help that I went to a beach-themed party the night before.



At Coast, a sports and surf-themed bar just north of Himeji Castle, the floors were covered with beach sand and the owner Yumi threw a barefoot beach-style party that lasted until about 4:30 am. My friend Timmy and I decided that we would dress-up for the occasion in hopes of out-doing the many bikini-clad Japanese women who would be there, so we bought some bamboo curtains to fabricate some tropical skirts (there were no grass skirts to be found) and decked ourselves out in leis and touristy hats and sunglasses. Timmy even fashioned himself a coconut bikini top and we blasted into the party (quite) fashionably late to the shock and awe of everyone there. Being the only topless men in the whole place we attracted a lot of attention and the night was just fantastic. I think I snapped nearly 110 photos that night, although most of them were of Timmy and I in compromising poses, as you can clearly see.



As an aside, I might recommend that anyone thinking of converting bamboo blinds into pseudo-grass skirts have their head examined. The back of my legs are scratched to a bloody pulp, and the salt water surfing I did the next day didn't feel very pleasant. Never a dull moment in Japan.

Yesterday I had a big all-day meeting out of town so I'm still not completely recharged. Today should be an easy day, and all these one-day weekends have forced my company to give me some other days off at the end of the month, so I think I'm looking at a 4-day weekend coming up. What am I going to do with myself, I wonder?

Hope you're all well. Drop me a line or send me a photo if you find the time!