Administrative Duties

The past couple days have been less than spectacular with respect to exploring Japan. I had a lot of administrative responsibilities to tackle this month. After reaching our one year point, we had to renew our car insurance. ✅ And after my American vacation, we needed more tollbooth passes. ✅ This month my free gift was two fans! Help us survive the summer.

I also made a trip to Costco. To my delight, they had Halloween decorations and costumes on display. Maybe I’ll survive the summer after all!

Police uniforms that look like BDUs.

This guy was my favorite. I was tempted to buy one to replace our old “scary man.” He was animated – talked, moved, and his eyes flashed!

The other concern for this time of year is the intrusion of bugs. We have been diligent to call housing weekly to have them spray for bugs. Well, it didn’t quite work as great as I hoped. The intense heat was replaced by never ending rain. This equates to bug invasion. This morning, as I was sitting at my computer, something caused me to turn around 180 degrees. I can’t remember why I turned because immediately I saw this awful creature crawling on my floor and went into attack mode. It may not seem very big – just remember, I’m very tall!

After killing it, I reflected on how pleased I was to have white tiled floor. Something I can’t believe I’m saying. But, the bugs can’t hide. For my enjoyment, here’s the video of me killing it. This year, I’m armed and dangerous!

I proceeded to spray the house and found another mukade outside and a huge beetle. Both are dead now.

Needless to say, after the big invasion on Friday, I needed to clean the entire house! Exploring could wait!

Since the beginning of this month, we have heard a lot about the rainy season in Japan. June started off with very rainy and humid weather and then cooled down and the humidity cleared. On Wednesday, there was noticeably more humidity in the air.

At both of my English classes today, my Japanese students mentioned rainy season has begun. I find this funny because other than the rain yesterday, it hasn’t rained in a while. I asked my students how can it be rainy season when it’s not raining. They explained that it wasn’t just about thevrain but also the extra humidity. Ahhh. Ok, I felt I needed more information.

I was able to find a very interesting and informative video from Westpacwx about the rainy season. It is too long to insert into my blog, but you can view it here.

For where we live in Japan, we should expect to experience the rainy season from now until the end of the month.

The monsoon or rainy season is a result of the Siberian high pressure receding and being replaced by the Western Pacific High. The Siberian high pressure system is cool dry air that was in place during the winter and the Western Pacific High pressure is warm moist air which by July and through August will be in place over Japan. Where these two high pressure systems meet create a frontal system with intense periods of rain or monsoons.

Another article I found discussed survival strategies for monsoon season. I feel like I’m ahead of the curve. I have two pairs of rain boots, a plethora of umbrellas in a stand (and car), and three dehumidifiers.

Also, I over purchased disposable dehumidifiers at Costco earlier this spring.

Another item the article suggest is a gauze sheet for sleeping. Surprisingly, Dave and I prefer to sleep on our lightweight flannel sheets in the summer. Last summer, we found the cotton sheets to feel too cool and almost damp. The light weight flannel is soft and snuggly! The article encourages a couple types of shoe dyers and charcoal sheets. I haven’t purcahsed these specific items yet. So far, I have experienced success by keeping our running shoes next to the dehumidifier after we run to help them dry faster. I might need to look into the mold killer if my preventive methods fail. Like keeping all doors open and running the bathroom exhaust fans. All of this might seem a little extreme. However, I have been told numerous horror stories about couches and walls being covered in mold. Ugh. Between mold and the mukade, I’m officially waging war on moisture!

And yes, the mukade have returned. I have killed three outside of our house this spring. I call housing weekly to come and spray. I’m hoping to prevent the infiltration we experienced last summer. I keep forgetting to snap a picture of them before I kill them because I just want them dead. Next time, I will video their dance of death after I spray them with the Japanese mukade death spray.

Overall, I think we are adequately prepared for the onset of monsoon season. I’ll report back on my lessons learned in September.