Summer is coming to the Japanese archipelago.
Some say Kyoto, trapped as it is like a dumpling in a surrounding skillet of mountains, is unbearable. Others swear the curtains of heat that rise from Tokyo's concrete sprawl are the summit of swelter. But in the end, it doesn't matter — summer anywhere south of the Tohoku region brings stupefying temperatures and humidity that will mug you of energy.
What's worse, on the way from spring to summer, the rainy season lies in ambush. Clothes hang damp in the soup-like air, bananas go brown overnight and umbrellas are little help against roving walls of rain.