Hot under the (shirt) collar

It's been baking in Tokyo over the past couple of weeks or so.

As I teach my students new adjectives to replace the just plain inadequate 'hot' (think roasting, cooking, etc), I'm enjoying the weather.

When I first came to Tokyo 10 summers ago, it was overcast, humid as heck and sticky. The kind of heat we're getting now, while it occasionally tumbles back into that Tokyo cliché, is more like that I remember from Australia: a blue sky, sizzling sun and high temperatures.

I other words I love it - except when I have to go to work, wearing a darn tootin' suit. Ack.

The problem may be that other people, not quite so fond of the scorched-earth temperatures and affected by the power shortages caused by the loss of power from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant (and others since shut down), will find it hard going and health concerns like heat stroke are already in play.

The Japanese government has appealed for people to save on electricity by raising the temperature settings on air conditioners to a minimum of 28°C.

Most people are also hesitant about heading off to the local beaches since there's that nuclear hazard still pumping away up north-east, and related "hot-spots" (of the radioactive rather than sun-related kind) popping up around the city.

Last summer went on record as Japan's hottest ever; now we have summer 2011 to look forward to. P'raps luckily I'll be whizzing down to Melbourne in August for a couple of weeks, to torture myself with a temperature about 30 degrees lower.

Then again, give me the sun, a t-shirt (sans witless collar) and shorts, plus a chilled beer in a park, and I'll be fine. Maybe an el cheapo wading pool to dip my feet in would just add to the attraction?

Amateur Ballet 2.0

This afternoon we got the pleasure of a freebie - an open "showcase" theatre performance by a local ballet studio in Toritsudaigaku. Basically we went because my wife and I both like ballet and our daughter loves it and is currently taking lessons at age four.

So this performance was supposed to be focused around students our daughter's age.

Or so we thought, anyway. While it started off with kids in the three-to-seven age bracket, suddenly we were faced with their peers in the forty to fifty age group, all of them wearing brief, glitzy leotards and tutus.

And when the male dancers appeared, they were far more manicured and show-boating than their female partners. I've never before seen such tailored eyebrows.

Fascinating.