As I’ve now fully experienced the joys (and the horrors) of all the seasons in Japan, I feel I can now write about them! I’m from southern California, pretty close to L.A. in fact. We don’t have seasons, or if we do, it’s simply a “hot and sunny” and a “less hot but still sunny”! We can go to visit the seasons in the nearby mountains, but then we return to our sunny homes in the afternoon after we’ve had our fill.

So moving to Japan was my first real experience with the changing seasons. I’d seen them in movies, and enjoyed our day-trips to the mountains, and so was (however misguidedly) under the impression that I could totally handle it, no sweat! Continue reading →