[This was written in the first week of April. It doesn't match the date of the posting and I wouldn't want anyone thinking the cherry blossoms came out in May or June.}

As you can see from the photos here and on the previous posting, the cherry blossoms - sakura- are out. One day, nothing and the next, there they are. They get pretty intense for a few days - seemed like less than a week - and then start to fall. If the wind is blowing, it looks like a snowstorm. My physics professor friend from the university said it's actually called a 'snow storm' of blossoms in Japanese. The ground is covered in pink petals. Then they get swept away and the trees come out green and they're gone until next year, when I have it on good authority that they'll be back. Samurai poets used to consider the short cycle of the cherry blossoms as a metaphor for life and it's easy to see why. Well, I think it's easy. Go ahead and take a poetic view and see what you come up with.

The weather here is not a surprise to me, of course, because I've been through the seasons before, but actually after living in California again for the last ten years, I had forgotten all the problems that come with the weather in Japan. I remembered some of them today because I got caught without my umbrella. This was especially annoying because I have a collapsible one that fits in my backpack and I had made the conscious decision to leave it at home this morning, apparently momentarily forgetting just where I was.

I only had to walk a short distance - far enough to get as wet as I wanted to, thank you very much - to get to a convenience store, every one of which in the country has a supply of cheap plastic umbrellas. Actually, you never have to walk more than a short distance to get to a convenience store in Japan no matter what you want. You often have to decide between convenience stores, there's that many. The umbrellas can run from about $3 on up and really help the stores live up to their 'convenience' theme.

Cheap is the operative word here. No one cares about them once the rain stops so they get thrown away, left in umbrella stands, forgotten on trains and stashed in clusters in closets. I saw a still-life of broken, discarded umbrellas under an apartment stairwell today. My own apartment came equipped with about six umbrellas, plus, of course, my own. I know - you're thinking 'and he still got caught out in the rain'. How dumb do think I felt?

I'm planning to get a motorscooter soon, for the general convenience and especially to save myself the 15 minute walk from the train station to the university. When it rains, it's a wash, pun intended, whether I get wetter walking or riding. When it's not raining, it's humid enough that when I get to my office, I look like I've been walking in the rain. Yes, I'm already tired of the walk. I'm not a person who gives himself a lot of extra time to get where he's going and when I'm already running late, that walk is a killer. Good exercise, true, but I can get that when I get back to my apartment and forget to buy bread.