The Land of the Rising Sun

Fried me. Yep, got my first sunburn in Japan yesterday. I wouldn't really consider it one of my "good" experiences here. I went to the beach in Hagi with some friends. Hagi is on the northern coast of Honshu, along the Sea of Japan- which is nicer than the southern coast, along the Inland Sea - where I live. It was a nice beach and perfect for swimming. There weren't any waves though- kinda weird- so the water was pretty shallow unless you swam way out. There were few people there though- Japanese people aren't crazy about the beach and laying out and swimming, like we are. They don't normally do it. There was a lady sitting on the beach under a big umbrella, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and white gloves that went all the way up most of her arm. They reminded me of formal gloves that you would wear with a prom dress or something. I'm assuming this was to protect her from the sun. Weird though.

Then we rented bikes for only 210 Yen per hour and rode around Hagi and did some sightseeing. It was hot and humid- but it was a nice day anyway. It is rainy season here now- it started on June 10- but so far we have had only 2 days of light rain in this area of Japan. Normally we should have had hard rain almost everyday of rainy season. So, it's a problem, if we don't get some rain soon- they will have a drought, and many of the rice fields in this area will die. One of my students told me that it hasn't been this dry during rainy season in like 10 years. So, hopefully, we will get some rain soon.