HOT HOT HOT!

Remember me, complaining of the terrible cold? Well now, lemme tell you about the terrible heat! It does not help that my apartment conducts heat like an oven...due it's lack of any insulation of any kind! I am very much looking forward to moving into our new place next month!!! My friend Kazue jokes that in Japan there are only a few months here we are not complaining about the weather - April and possibly October...the remaining are too humid, rainy, cold, hot...and so on.

TOKYO — The mercury rose to the highest point this summer in many parts of the Kanto region and west of it Thursday, with Hita, Oita Prefecture, recording 36.9 C, up 5.3 degrees from average. In wide areas ranging from Hokkaido to Fukuoka, many people complained of nausea, dizziness and other symptoms of heat stroke. At least 198 people were taken to hospital across Japan.