Here Comes The Sun

Although I may have first surfed the so-called Internet back in 1980 with my Atari 400 computer and the telephone placed onto a modem, all that was available then were message boards. Ten years later in 1990 when I first got to Japan, it was still much the same.
Al Gore didn’t invent the real Internet until about 1992 or so, and even then, information contained within should have been taken with a grain of salt thanks to 90 per cent of the information that wasn’t porn, was inaccurate. The porn may have been inaccurate, too.
I mention this because in 1990, I really had no concept of what Japan was like, except that all of my pre-conceived notions may have been incorrect.
I knew there were navy-blue suit clad Japanese men with glasses and Moe Howard haircuts; there were radioactive monsters; and there was sushi, which every kid on the playground knew was raw fish.
Readers of It’s A Wonderful Rife now know that not all men have the Moe haircut (see Shibata-sensei), the only monsters I’ve seen aren’t radioactive (giant spiders), and that sashimi is the raw fish meal and sushi is actually various fish, cephalopod, eggs and/or veggies wrapped in cooked sticky long-grained Japanese gohan (rice)--not American or Indian rice!--and nori (dried seaweed).
What I didn’t know about Japan could fill a blog every few days for years—see what you’ve signed up for!?
Here for your edification is some information about Japan’s climate, and because some of you have asked for it (okay only one of you), a brief mention about the time difference.
Weather you’re ready or not: Not all of Japan is created equally weather-wise because of its geographical layout. A map of Japan will show you what I mean: MAP.
While a lot of the country is situated east-west, you’ll notice that a lot of it also stretches north-south. It’s because of this verticality that Japan has a very varied climate.
There’s teeth-chattering Sub-Arctic weather to the north (Hokkaido or the disputed Kuril Islands claimed by Japan, but occupied by Russia since 1947), Sub-Tropical (Okinawa) to the very south (Okinawa), while the larger Kansai, Chubu and Kanto regions on the mainland are considered Humid-subtropical and have the variable four seasons just like Toronto.
Honestly, the weather for Ohtawara is very similar to Toronto—so, I lucked-in (-out… what the heck is the correct term?)
Winter is December 21-March 20; Spring is March 21-June 20; Summer is June 21-September 20; and Winter is September 20-December 20. Officially.
It starts to get very rainy in August and September, though August is also the hottest month and on average 11 of the 30 days of September are wet.
It cools down quickly in October and November, is downright frigid in December, with some snow (maybe three or four storms) between January and February—more if you are closer to the mountains. March is wet and windy, but cool. April is warm enough for you to wear shorts. May through July it’s hot and you’re going to do a lot of sweating.
Temperature for Ohtawara is (on average): 1.2 Celsius in January up to 23.1 degrees Celsius in August, with an annual average temperature of 12.5 degrees Celsius.
Hmmm, I’m reading this as I write it, and for the three years I was there, those summer month temperatures—especially August were always in the mid to high 30s where it was mushii atsui (humid & hot). Could some of this information I’ve glommed from the Internet be wrong?
Ohtawara averages about 158.7-mm of rain a year, with the wettest months being June through September (I’ll actually say September, as it always has about five typhoons roaring through the country).
Weird fact #1: Approximately 50 per cent of Ohtawara is covered by rice fields.
Weird fact #2: Ohtawara is 217.76 m above sea level.
Weird fact #3: Ohtawara’s official flower is the kiku (chrysanthemum).
Weird fact #4: Japan does not follow daylight savings time.
Weird fact #5: Japan is 14 or 15 hours ahead of the U.S. and Canada’s eastern standard time (EST) and 10 or 11 hours ahead of the U.K. Why the inability to peg down the actual time difference? Remember, o noble reader, we all have daylight savings time to shift on us.

Somewhere, you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet
Andrew (my blog is on the Internet) Joseph
PS: I might exaggerate, but you can always believe your stupid guide-jin, An-do-ryu.