where the sun rises 2

Yes, Japan was hot. Hot hot hot in the summertime. For a life-long Vancouverite like me, I knew nothing of what heat and humidity combined felt like. There were days when I'd be at home alone, Ryan having gone off to school, when I'd just sit under the air conditioner in the nude. A pretty picture, but when it's that hot, you'll do anything to cool down. Cool baths were a hit too, and kept me cool for a while after.

We discovered a peculiar thing about Japan one day when I ran out of deodorant and wanted to go buy some. We went to the local supermarket, which had none, then to the convenience store, which also had none, then to a drug store, which also had nothing of the sort. I think I ended up finding a teensy "spray can" of the stuff on some till rack in a random store. It was through that searching process that we realized that Japanese people don't wear deodorant.

Now, being in a society that's overly paranoid about any kind of natural smells, one might think that I was absolutely disgusted and went on a deodorizer-spraying rampage, but no. I had seen the summers come and go a couple times by then, and had seen how everyone, not only us, always had sweat beading down their faces. In fact, a crucial carry-around item for the Japanese in summer was a handkerchief, with which they'd continually wipe their faces down. No, there was no difference in the liquid loss, but the thing I never ever noticed was a smell of any sort coming from anyone around me. There simply was none. I was puzzled at first. It was, I believe, my 3rd summer in Japan that I realized that I wasn't really smelling either. It was as if the amount of sweat alone washed away any sort of smell. So then you're just stuck with being soaking wet all the time. Sigh, better, but no less comfortable.

On the other hand, there was a certain "citizen" of Japan that did omit a rather raunchy odor. We encountered these "citizens" on a handful of occasions, but only once were we within smelling-range. We were out on a hike in the countryside in an area called "Yunodaira" and as we walked along, the bugs buzzed around us, and the heat pelted down on our hat-clad heads. Suddenly, I sniffed the air and smelled something awful. No one was anywhere around us, and the trail was quiet. Then I looked off to the right and into the trees next to me. There, sitting on a low branch, was a wise-looking, and very serious, red snow monkey face. The eyes stared me down and his hands gripped the branch he was sitting on. I wasn't sure whether I should keep walking, or look away, or just stand and stare. But I certainly didn't want to breathe him in any more, so I held my breath. Stinky!!! Whew! After a moment, we noticed a few other faces in the trees as well - all of which were looking straight at us, silently with their grey coats and red bottoms plunked onto branches of different sizes. Having had our fill of the standoff, we quietly and gingerly moved on, having heard that these guys can get a little feisty.

So off we went, happy to have had met a couple monkeys in the heat, and not so happy to have smelled them. We had spent quite a bit of energy trying to run into these guys for the months leading up to this encounter. We ended up seeing plenty more of them too, running across the country roads in groups, babies trailing behind; raiding a country farm and running off with melons and other fruits and veggies; and just being the usual "nuisances" that Japanese people seemed to make of them.

In Vancouver, we think coyotes and raccoons are nuisances. I'd take a stinky, red-faced monkey over them any day.