One of the many reasons I was looking forward to moving to Japan was to experience actual seasons again. Much like I grew up with in the UK - long endless warm summers, colourful autumns, barren, cold and snowy winters and then seeing everything come back to life and the feeling of optimism in spring.
Then I heard that Japan's summers were brutal.
New Zealand climate
You see, in the upper parts of New Zealand such as Auckland there aren't really seasons. The climate constantly flip-flops between sun, rain, clouds and wind on a daily basis, and all within a day sometimes too. There are no seasons, just a gradual change in temperature. Even the native bush and trees are mostly evergreen and therefore don't change with the seasons.
Winter is very mild, punctuated with the occasional cold blast that comes up from Antarctica. Then the temperature slowly and gradually climbs up to the mid 20's for summer. The sun in NZ is extremely harsh and gives you the feeling that it is much hotter than it actually is, with the shade providing some respite because the ambient temperatures are actually quite cool. Add in the fact that it is often windy and summer really isn't all that hot unless you are braving the direct sun and the higher risk of skin cancer that is common in NZ.
My gripes with the New Zealand summer are many fold. Firstly, it's never actually that hot. So when we go to the beach the water is cold, and the weather is just not hot enough (for me) to want to go in. And if it's windy, which it often is, you will just about freeze after getting out of that cold water even on a hot day. Then you'll get sunburn faster than you thought possible by warming up in the sun even though you were generous with the sunscreen. The weather is also very unpredictable. Stretches of stable weather just don't happen so planning a 4 hour round-trip to a beach on the coming weekend is just a massive gamble because even if the weather and forecast looks good, things change so fast.
The combined Christmas and Summer holidays are probably my biggest gripe. Most people get the 2 weeks off over Christmas and New Years, myself included and that's the summer holiday. That means most of the country is on holiday, including school kids. This results in everything being booked out months in advance and everything is busy and overpriced. People that love the Kiwi summer tend to have access to a nice holiday home somewhere that they can disappear to for those 2 weeks or longer.
Personally I find it a frustrating time because you are trying to have your summer holiday at the same time you have commitments for Christmas and New year. Combine that with the unpredictable weather and before you know it, summer has been and gone and you wonder if you even had a summer that year.
So yeah I have never been a fan of summer in NZ. Mostly because I never really get to have one, and if I did, the weather would probably ruin it.
With that little rant out of the way, what about Japan?
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| Freshly planted rice fields before Tsuyu |
Tsuyu (rainy season)
Almost every time I have visited Japan it has been in May. The weather is often good with temps hitting high 20s which is perfect. I always imagined as things moved into June and beyond, those temperatures would just continue to rise into Summer. Not quite.
Japan has a rainy season every year, known as Tsuyu. It tends to start in early June and run through to mid July. I arrived this year in early June, having missed the nice spring weather to be greeted with cool temperatures and a lot of rain. It rained so much, every single day for weeks on end. The rain was so heavy at one point that the irrigation river that runs in front of the in-laws house rose over a meter and was threatening to submerge the bridge - it actually did last year. At the time I thought Tsuyu was awful. As I'm sitting here writing this with the temperature outside well into the 30's and humid, I'm missing those cool rainy days! I heard from a number of people that the rainy season is not always cool and refreshing, instead, some years it is just incredibly humid, warm and rather unpleasant.
Mosquito's are a problem with the damp and cooler weather. Every time we go out of the house we apply bug spray to our skin and always having to fret over not leaving doors open any longer than absolutely necessary. When the sun comes out and the temperatures rise the mosquito's mostly disappear and generally aren't a problem until later in the evening when the temperatures cool slightly.
The other thing I noticed, out here in the countryside, is the Frogs and Toads. Every night, the sound of hundreds or thousands of them croaking is almost deafening. You get used to it eventually though, like some strange lullaby. At one point in the middle of summer you'll wake up in the middle of the night and notice just how quiet it is because those pesky amphibians aren't singing anymore.
The Frogs aren't the only ones getting busy just before summer starts. The Farmers all work hard to plant every single available field with Rice seedlings, just before it rains relentlessly to keep those fields flooded. The sound of grass being cut is also a ubiquitous sound of approaching summer.
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| Everything is green |
Summer Temps
Once the rain stopped and the sun came out, it basically stayed out. It's now early September as I'm typing this sentence, and since mid July we have had just 2 hours of rain. 2 hours. In 6 weeks. It's not the same everywhere though, just recently in August, Chiba had 350mm of rain in 24 hours resulting in historic flooding. Weather is crazy.
The temperatures have hit 40C in Kumamoto City this summer. I think the most we've had is around 37-38C, with most days the highs are generally around 34C. It's hot and uncomfortable at times but perfectly fine if you are always in rooms that have the AC on. Then when you have to actually do something outside you quickly remember just how hot it is. Inside without AC is hardly an escape either - I assembled my new Mountain Bike recently in a room without AC, with the windows and doors fully open and no sun yet I still got drenched in sweat from doing some pretty easy work.
Luckily I am currently in a position where I can pick and choose when and how I expose myself to this heat. I cannot imagine that it would be extremely unpleasant if that was not the case - such as doing manual labour or working in a factory all day.
The biggest surprise is that there is no notable temperature drop-off. When you wake up in the morning it's already near 30C. When you go to bed it is still near 30C. This means there isn't really a good time to do stuff to avoid the heat. On a number of occasions I have opted to walk the 2km to the nearest convenience store and that results in needing to take a shower and a fresh change of clothes afterwards. Constantly feeling gross is basically a given with Summer here unless you just stay inside in AC the whole time.
The other thing I've noticed is that there must be an unspoken rule with the AC as no-one will turn it on unless the temperature is 30C or above. And then it will be set to 28, which is actually OK and I never thought that was possible. We use 27C at night. In NZ however, if the AC was above 23C it would be far too hot to sleep. I will never understand this.
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| Lush rice fields in mid summer |
Summer nature
Summer out here in the countryside, surrounded by farm fields is also quieter than normal. The rice fields were all planted before Tsuyu and are just left to grow, so the sounds of tractors, generators and grass being cut almost disappear. Except for this one generator next to our house that another farmer turns on in the morning or late at night to pull water from the river into his nearby rice field. Very inconsiderate because he doesn't have to listen to the damned thing spluttering away whilst he's trying to work or sleep.
Summer in Japan is beautiful though. Everything is lush and green, and I love those greens. There is so much life too.
New Zealand seems to have just about no wildlife in comparison yet everyone goes on about it. I've done a lot of walking in the New Zealand bush and aside from a few birds you won't see anything. The same can be said for walking around the coastline or local parks.
Around the house and within short 30 minute walks around the farm fields where we live, I have seen:
- Snakes, a few varieties both on the side of the road and in the river
- Skinks and Geckos
- Dragonflies, thousands of them
- Spiders, hundreds of them
- A turtle
- A bat that lives in the shed
- Frogs and Toads
- Herons, Crows and eagles
- Swallows that live in the shed
- Kingfishers and other small birds
- Massive Koi carp and lots of smaller fish in the river
- A crazy amount of bugs including big grass hoppers and stick insects
And if you go further afield, such as to the beach, there will be tonnes of fish visible in the water with you, from hundreds of tiny camoflagued gobies to larger fish schooling a bit deeper. The amount of life everywhere is just staggering!
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| Pearl Sun Beach looking toward Unzen |
Summer swimming
With such hot temperatures the only pleasant place to be outside is at the beach. The water is clear and warm. The Beaches that we've found tend to seem a bit artificial though. They usually have breakwaters at each end like bookends and then large nets further out I'm assuming to keep big jellyfish and sharks out. They have car parking and changing facilities too, so it's just more convenient that a natural out-of-the-way beach that doesn't even have a toilet.
We spent a good few days at the beach after we found one in particular that we like. The only downside is that every beach we tried has a common pest - Jetski owners. Despite having many kilometres of coastline and little islands to ride around this lot seem to just want to tear up and down right next to the beach. I'm guessing it's because they want everyone to see how cool they are instead we all just think they are idiots that are ruining our peace and quiet. Jetski owners seem to be the same wherever you are in the world.
Despite temperatures being hotter than ever, I found it interesting to learn that since 1985 there has been a 88% decrease in how much of Japan's population go to the beach. I don't know why, but interesting nonetheless. If you look at any picture from the 80's you'll see people sunbathing and wearing 'normal' beach attire. In contrast to nowadays, almost everyone at the beach is covered head to toe like Ninja's and I've anecdotally heard that it's because they don't want a tan, because tans are associated with blue collar jobs and that is somehow bad. It is just so alien to be at the beach and everyone is wearing more clothes than if they were not at the beach!
Our beach days got cut short just when we were getting into the routine of going every weekend. In the middle of August we went to our preferred beach expecting it to be very busy as it was a long weekend. It wasn't. Then I saw a small but chunky jellyfish in the water and after googling it I discovered that most Japanese abruptly (and I mean abruptly) stop going to the beach from the Obon Holiday onwards, which was incidentally the weekend I'm talking about. Apparently it's just traditional, because normally Jelly Fish numbers sharply increase around this time. You can still go to the beach if you like and swim, no-one is stopping you though. Other than the jellies. So with maybe 4-8 weeks of potential beach days left, we stopped going to the beach.
Our daughter's Hoikuen (daycare) has a swimming pool and they would use it just about everyday during summer, then also abruptly stop once the calendar goes past August 31st. This seems to be one of those traditions that has not been reviewed, as those kids could really benefit for having access to the pool through September on hot days, but nope apparently summer is over because the calendar said so!
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| A hot and still day in Kumamoto City |
The end of Summer
The warm temperatures, so I have been told, stay into October though they do cool slightly. For me, those temps would very much still constitute a summer!
Peak summer from my limited experience (this year) was tidily bookended between the rain stopping in mid July at the end of Tsuyu, and the start of September which has brought with it some consistent rain and a temperature drop of a few degrees. I am very much looking forward to the temperatures being just that little bit lower to be able to spend more time outdoors. Officially, the summer months are June, July and August but given in rains from mid June to mid July, and then it's hotter and dryer from mid July to mid September, what we actually consider summer is quite different.
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| People gathered for the village Obon festival |
In closing
I did get the endless summer from my childhood, even if I spent most of it hiding away indoors and the sanctuary of air conditioned rooms.
Summer in Japan is brutal. Well, maybe not for Australians or Texans. But those of us from cooler climates, it's nothing like we have ever experienced apart from on holiday somewhere hot. Living with it is a different matter entirely, and surviving it is a very serious matter - Heat stroke causes many deaths and not just for the elderly. So really it is a time to hunker down inside and stay cool if you can or go the beach and wait for the manageable temperatures. If you are a tourist travelling to Japan, simply avoid June, July and August. If you want nice weather that's warm but not hot then aim for May or October - thank me later.
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