Rain

So today's weather forecast? Rain. Yesterday? Rain! Tomorrow? Actually warm and sunny, but the day after that it'll undoubtedly rain. Welcome to what the Japanese no-so-affectionately refer to as tsuyu - the rainy season.

Now I don't really get this, but I hear a lot of Japanese people like to make a big deal out of how Japan has 4 seasons and the seasons are so unique and yada yada. Well that's retarded, and I'll tell you why - Japan doesn't have 4 seasons!! It has all the normal faves with spring, summer, autumn, and winter, but then there's this 1-2 month period right about this time of year where if it doesn't rain then you wonder what's wrong sometimes. It totally qualifies as its own climactic phenomenon. It really is separate from spring, and leads you right into a hot, sticky summer. Anyway, yesterday everything was all honkey dorey until about the time I got off work, then sure enough it started up when I was grabbing some grub en route to my Japanese tutor. I'm glad the big 'ol fat rain hasn't come yet... if you think it rains back home and you haven't been in a hurricane, then you probably really haven't seen rain.

So while I'm seriously waiting for someone to try to bust out the whole "unique 4 seasons" shtick on me so I can crush them with my superior 5 season plan, I have not-so-unrecently experienced a place that doesn't have the normal 4 seasons of the temperate zone in which I have resided my entire life. Thailand. See Thailand's a bit closer to the equator, so it has a pretty tropical climate, especially in the south. Accordingly, the north has 3 seasons, and the south has but 2. In the south the temperature doesn't really change that much year round, so the 2 seasons you get are dry and wet (monsoons - woo). In the north, you get a colder (such a relative term) season, then the dry and wet seasons the south does. So no, all countries don't have 4 seasons... including Japan because they have 5.

Man, I really wanna get back to the tropics... Okinawa anyone?