rain drops on the greenery - found on a stroll with my new best friend: my macro lens

Rainy season, or 梅雨 tsuyu (which sounds like “sue you”), is something you just can’t escape when you hang around Tokyo in the summer. It basically runs from the first week of June to the third week of July (that’s right, about SIX LOOOOONG weeks). I used to always go back to Canada in June because it’s a great time of year there and so absolutely not a great time of year here, but I stopped doing that a few years ago.

Some years are not as bad as others, and there are some beautiful things about rainy season – hydrangeas in bloom being the chief thing of beauty during June and the odd sunny day being so much appreciated and enjoyed is another.

I have really tried this year to embrace rainy season by turning my photographic attention to, first, hydrangeas and then any flowers, plants, and buds that I came across; and it did work for a while, and I did get some really nice shots. However, I am not sure I can hack another 2 weeks of the grey skies, cloud cover, drizzle, rain, more grey skies, and, yes, a persistent drizzle.

A little nugget from Wikipedia:

In June, Tokyo experiences an average of 176 mm of rain, more than any month other than September. (Even though more rain falls in September, those rain totals are caused by typhoons, which are nowhere nearly as regular and predictable as the rains in June.)

The key in the above is that, as it says, although September has a greater volume of rain, the rain comes in sporadic but big typhoon blasts that dump A LOT of rain in one go (meaning there are still a number of non-rainy days in September compared to June).

What’s odd (meaning I’ve never really seen this before in the number of years I’ve been here) is that for the past few days the grey cloud cover starts to shift around 3 or 4 pm and the evening turns out to be quite clear, breezy, and beautiful. The sky clears up and it is really beautiful out. However, it’s little consolation because it’s the lack of sunshine that is doing my head in – it’s like a kind of SAD (I’ve always loved that acronym: Seasonal Affective Disorder. Makes me laugh every time I see it…)

I am counting the days…about 10 more to go…

hydrangea with rain drops