Summer in the (Japanese) city

Spent a crazy amount of money in the UK in July, so August holiday is at home in Tokyo. It’s hot, it’s humid and the white noise of the cicadas can quickly turn from soothing to irritating, but it’s not so bad really. Electricity bills are ridiculously high but using the aircon and/ or fan seems to make them go up much less than you’d expect and traditional Japanese clothes, houses, festivals etc. are basically designed with the summer in mind:

Stuff you can only really do and/ or appreciate in the summer in Japan:

Watch fireworks (almost every weekend night)
Buy and wear tatami-lined, wooden or straw sandals and maybe yukata (summer kimono) or jimbei (pajama-like shorts and thin wrap over shirt set)
Matsuri (street festivals)
Take your laptop and/ or a book down to one of those beach bar places in Enoshima, Kamakura or Miura Kaigan (all within an hour or so of Tokyo) and sit there at your little wooden table in the sea breeze all day for a couple of thousand yen, taking a dip if you feel like it and your sun protection is strong enough
Outside cafes and restaurants- good ones in Tamachi (Shibaura), Shinagawa (Tennozu Isle), Doutor coffee in Funabashi etc. etc.
Watch the dragonflies over a park pond or make a collection of dead semi (cicadas)
Boat rides from Kasai Rinkai koen park up the Sumida river etc.
Party boats from Takeshiba pier (Hamamatsucho)
“Stamina don”, eel etc. to give yourself the strength to go on
Kakigori (shaved ice) with many colours and flavours- any with condensed milk particularly recommended. Maybe even buy your own shaved ice machine in the shape of Hello Kitty.
Bonding with strangers, especially old ladies, by saying “Atsui da ne” at bus stops etc.
Stand outside a department store pretending to meet a friend and enjoy the aircon from up to 5 meters away from the door
Beer gardens on department store roofs. Just don’t expect a garden- nothing will be green- or even real beer if it’s a nomihodai (drink all you like deal) as it will be probably be low tax happoshu fake beer made with peas
Iced black bean tea, mugi tea etc. etc.
Strange flavours of ice cream, e.g. green tea and red beans
Cheap and cheerful ice lollies, e.g. the bright blue Gari Gari-kun with its unidentifiable but delicious flavour

(started as an answer of mine to a post on Dave’s ESL Cafe: http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=55069

Any other ideas or suggestions?

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 8:09 amand is filed under Learning Japanese, TESOL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.