Rainy Season. It's back. Officially. Which, for the most part, is super crappy, especially since I planned a picnic birthday party for a CERTAIN BABY GIRL this weekend. All is not lost, however, as the rain does give me the opportunity to get out and take a few rain-droppy pictures. Thus, in honour of the plum rains, I've taken some snaps and am linking up at Budget Trouble for Show Me Japan.
I wanted to try to capture a superwellfocused raindrop on a leaf, but this is much more difficult to accomplish than it appears to be in all those fancy photography websites. So, here is my halfassed, thoroughly mediocre-to-poor effort.
So, yeah. Rainy season in Japan. Tsuyu, or plum rains, they're called (coincidentally, in China the season is also called plum rains, which I think sounds beautiful: full, ripe with rain.) For the uninitiated, the season 'round these parts opens at the end of May and last until mid-July. Frigid Siberian air masses collide and do battle with the hot, moist air of South-East Asia and the fallout is four weeks of rain.
Damp lobby.
Rainy season brings rain. Clearly. But also intense humidity. The foyer of our building becomes a steam room, the marble floor slick, and glass heavy with condensation. Mould marches in and seizes any available territory. Like, for example, my girl's laundry bin. (There were many causalities; a tragic culling of fabrics various and sundry.) Apparently incidences of food poisoning rise during this time of year. And I know from experience that you can't leave fruit out on the counter more than a day or two. It even seems to rot in the fridge at a freakishly alarming pace.
Look it's me. In the mirror of my building's foyer. Très humid, I tell you.
Rain pours, but we still must go about our business. Subways and buses are thick with dripping umbrellas. Large stores have umbrella bag dispensers at their entrances; you stuff your sopping umbrella into a plastic bag in an attempt to contain the wet. Umbrella thieves prowl, capturing their unattended prizes left in doorway stands. People arm themselves with little towels, draped around their necks or hidden away in pockets to combat the humidity. You tuck folding fans into your purse, or having forgotten one, accept a fan printed with an advertisement in the train station.
But it is not all bad. There are days of intense downpours. And days of soft, warm drizzle. And then a break. The Japanese say three days rain, four days sun. The air smells fresh, the greens so intense. And rainy season is when irises bloom. So.
