The akiya I've had my eye on for a while is in Saitama, which my girlfriend says is known for being hotter and more humid than Tokyo. Is that true?
I've never lived in either place so please take what I'm about to say as no more than supposition but I suspect a lot comes down to surrounding environs. You do get the heat island effect in Tokyo during the summer, all that concrete and tarmac holding onto the heat and air conditioners pumping it out. So if the house you are looking at is also surrounded by apartment blocks and concrete buildings then it would probably be similar but if it's surrounded by low density housing or countryside then it will feel cooler.
Our house is surrounded by forest and outside of that rice paddies so most evenings in the summer we get by opening up all the windows and getting a cool breeze blowing through the house. It still feels hot but I've not felt many cool breezes when visiting Tokyo in the summer, it just feels hot and clammy.
Perhaps someone that has lived in Tokyo can chip in ?
"but after living near the arctic circle in Alaska for 2 years, I'll never do that to myself again, ha-ha."
Try living in North Dakota for 18 years.......................
A normal winter only get down to -35C, a cold one hits -40C and that is the temp. Wind chill is much lower.
I was in Fairbanks, where it got to -50F, but there was no windchill to speak of. Anyway, I'll never do that again. I've also lived in the desert, where it regularly got to 110F. I'll take that over cold any day.
My asshole roommates told me they are kicking me out...so I've been biking all over looking at rooms after work. I haven't really driven my car since moving to my current city, and ride my bike to work every day. So, I'm in decent shape now, but where I live in pretty hilly. The extra trips around town, or to neighboring towns, to look at rooms have given me some great additional exercise, but damn, it's starting to wear me out.
After dealing with this bullshit, I really want to move to Japan now.
Thanks! I've already found one. I just have to get through the management application process (which I'll pass with flying colors). Then I can get out of here. Ugh...
Yesterday I went to a friend's farm with a good group of friends to drill and inoculate a big pile of lumber with shiitake spores. The owner made a big pot of chagayu which we ate with a few different kinds of grilled fish, kinzanji miso, konnyaku, lots of pickles, and probably more that I'm forgetting. I brought s'mores fixins for the kids.
The owner sent me home with a small bag of wasabi leaves, which I started to process at home. You're supposed to massage them in a towel, then shake them in a sealed jar to release the spicy stuff. I'd never done the jar before. Just about burned my eyes out checking it
Had a bit of a result last night. Popped out for pizza and we ended up coming home with this
There had been an accident at a friend of the pizza restaurant's owner's company (grammar could be wrong there) where several pallets of Brie fell off a forklift and were damaged so they couldn't be sold and he had a large stock of them in his walk in cool room . So we'll be eating a lot of Brie over the next week or two.