Escaping the rain

 We had to admit that the Japanese rainy season was not quite what we had imagined when reading about it in Finland. We kind of thought that we also live in a pretty rainy country, and that a bit of rain wouldn't be that bad as long as it wasn't cold.

So we came to Japan during the rainy season, cycled around happily, but started wondering about these enormous, half a meter wide and a meter deep open drains  we kept seeing by the road. Why would they build such big, dangerous drains that someone could fall into and really hurt themselves?

And then we realized: the drains are there because it's not really a "rainy" season we're talking about, it's the monsoon season. It's the season when the sky opens up and water starts pouring down with such force that it takes a giant drain to control the masses of liquid gushing down the hills.

We got a little bit alarmed, imagining getting soaked by rain every single day for the rest of the trip, sweating uncomfortably in our rain gear while the water still found ways to get through.

But then we looked more closely at our guide book and realized that the north of Japan actually has no rainy season! We had planned to travel north anyway and slowly get to cooler areas as the summer grew hotter in the south, but the heavy rains made us decide to speed up the process a bit by taking one of the reliable ferries that travel up and down the coast. In about 20 hours of travel in a simple but cozy tatami room we shared with some friendly Japanese hikers it took us from Tsuruga to Akita. And that's the story of how we escaped the rain. Hooray!