Beautiful Kanazawa?

Ah, we seem to have crossed the line from what was the unbeatably comfortable Japanese spring, with tolerably hot days and perfectly cool nights, into that hot, rainy, muggy season that signifies the oppressively hot Japanese summer. I'd resisted A/C until yesterday. While all of my coworkers lounged in their air conditioned offices, I defiantly fanned myself with the windows open in mine. But gone are the mornings when I can stroll to work without becoming sweaty and irritable, and I finally hit the dreaded button. And even in our own apartment, where fans have sufficed, the bedroom A/C has been awoken from it's winter slumber. Currently it's raining and hot, and as such, humid -- the sleep killer. And so, the A/C churns. It's inevitable.

As if we didn't have enough to do, we pulled the trigger on the house we were looking to rent last weekend. Chieko has been expressing her displeasure without hesitation, but all in all is being a trooper about the whole ordeal of moving. She really doesn't want to do it, I really do. I'm hoping when the dust settles she'll at least see the merits of the situation, if not laud me for urging it upon us.

Here are a few more pics of the new joint, at least the first floor.

The kitchen, complete with mini Japanese dishwasher and ample counter space.



And a view into the dining room/tatami room. There's lots of room on the first floor, and lots of room in general in this house. Probably more than we need right now, but throw a few kids into the mix and we'll fill it up nicely.



No pics of the second floor yet, but we'll get more up once we're in. The bummer is that we'll only be into the place for about a week before we're off to Niigata to pick watermelons, and then off to America for a few weeks shortly thereafter. So settling in won't get done until we're back at the end of August.

I'm excited that my friend Carlisle is coming into town on Sunday for two weeks. He's from South Africa, and I met him when I was 'studying' there for a semester in college. Whatever I missed out on in terms of academics while I was there, Carlisle made up for in getting me out of the international student circle and introducing me to some real South Africans. We had a lot of good times together, and I haven't seen him in about 8 or 9 years, so hopefully we'll be able to capture some of the good old days.

I've got one more day of classes on Monday, along with some brief days entering grades and taking care of other end of term stuff, but I'm sprinting towards the finish line. I can already see that this summer is going to come and go before I can blink, but it's set to be full of good times. Here's to hoping everything works out as planned. But it's late, and the bed waits...