Tomorrow’s Forecast
Tomorrow in Tokyo it will be sunny and a pleasant 55 F degrees, but with a 30% chance of Mothra.
I’ve been asked a lot about the weather here by folks at home. The winters in Tokyo are dry and relatively mild - with daytime temperatures between the low 40s and low 50s. I’m told Tokyo never gets more than a light dusting of snow. We’re on a small island though, and it has quite a cold breeze, particularly in the mornings. Fortunately, we are upwind of the sewage treatment plant that’s less than a half mile away. I’ve walked through the neighborhood that’s downwind. It’s just as packed with shiny new apartment and office buildings, like the rest of Shinagawa, and most of the time you don’t smell anything, but at random intervals you’ll hit an air pocket with an incredibly foul stench. Interestingly, there are still some dilapidated shacks along the waterfront, which may be indicative of what the whole area may have been like in the past. Maria thinks it may once have been a burakumin (Japanese underclass) town.
We’ve felt two mild earthquakes in the month we’ve been here. Maria tells me that’s the typical frequency. The island we’re on is entirely man-made, which means it won’t fare too well if there’s a really strong earthquake - hopefully my Japan experience won’t include one of those!
Next weekend we’re headed to Sapporo for the annual Snow Festival. They usually get around 15 feet of snow in the winter, but they have hardly any this year. On the news they’ve been showing the Japanese army being put to work trucking in snow so the festival can go on as scheduled.
