Summer Nights

Summer lovin' had me a blast.  Summer lovin' happened so fast.  

    

The ultimate sign of summer: eating grilled corn on the cob outside in the park

I'm sorry.  I had to get it out of my system.  But the thing is- summer is over now.  And you know what?  It happened really fast.  And I DID have a blast!  But the other night, I left the house wearing jeans.  People had on hoodies.  So I thought I'd spend the next few entries doing a little montage of some Tokyo summer highlights.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about this past summer is the insane heat.  While the temperature in Tokyo is similar to a DC summer, the use of air conditioning is not nearly as much.  Especially since this summer, we were all told to save electricity after the March 11 earthquake.  Office buildings were ordered to stay at 28 degrees Celsius (about 82 degrees Fahrenheit) all summer long.  Train stations turned off their AC completely during non-rush hour times.  To provide some relief, the government instituted Super Cool Biz.  This basically meant that workers could dress more casually than normal, but it also inspired some very interesting products.

Please note the fans built into this man's jacket.  Wouldn't it be cooler to just not wear the jacket??

This jacket wasn't so unusual.  I saw everything from cool gel packs to tie around your neck to undershirts that had built in removable underarm pads.  Again, wouldn't it be better to just wear some stronger deodorant?  This is Cool Biz.  So Cool Biz isn't a summer tradition you're familiar with?  How about baseball?  Tune in for the next installment.