This year’s summer in Japan has been very hot. Every day the temperature exceeds 34 Celsius degrees, and we barely have wind blowing inside the house, making it even worse. Plus, we only have electrical fans instead of the air-conditioner, so.. you can imagine how HOT our summer is.

In mid August, Japan has Obon yasumi: a three-day holiday to honor the departed spirit of one’s ancestors. This holiday, we went to a beach in Fukui prefecture along with several friends. The weather was, again, hot but probably perfect for a day to enjoy the beach.

The place was three hours ride by car through the highways. We stayed for one night at a minshuku, a traditional Japanese lodge near by the beach. Somehow, we felt that the atmosphere was very much like Indonesia. Maybe because the people we met there were much more relaxed and not so regulation-oriented, like those we usually meet in Japan’s big cities.

We played at the beach, had two visits to Yupple (a large public bath facility) and went back home the next day with sun burns. Yes, even us Indonesians get sun burns in such hot weather. It took us seven hours to get home, because the roads were so full of people heading back to the big cities after spending the holiday at their hometowns or tourist resorts like we did.

Back in our apartment in Aichi, summer is still here, as hot as it was before. We look very much forward to autumn, but we still have more than a month to bear…