The sweat gland of the rising sun

Its June! Which means: off to Japan again. As Max put it "I can measure how far through the year we are by how many times you have been to Japan" - and he is right: regular as clockwork I head out for Nippon at the beginning of February, again at the beginning of June, and once more at the end of September - with maybe a Christmastime visit as well. In the nine years that Nini and I have ben together, I think we have spent one in three Valentines days apart, with me in Tokyo each time. (and it could have been more, but I refused to go in 2004 because Amelie was due to be born on the 14th....)
I do love Japan, and Tokyo in particular - it's like being sent for a week to the set of Bladerunner - but the June trip is always the worst: the humidity in Japan at this time of year is just unpleasant. You can walk out of your hotel wearing only a T-shirt and it will be soaked through within a block: it is desperately sweaty weather, and my cheap, slightly shiny suit can look seriously downmarket within a few minutes of walking around outside in 70% humidity. I am not sure that displaying visible cresent moons of perspiration beneath each man-breast is quite the best way to impress potential Japanese customers, but I seem to have little choice...
Even the allure of Akihabara Electric Town, and the latest high-tech videogames and associated Japan-only souvenir merchandise, loses some of its appeal when you know you have to lug it back to the hotel in monsoon conditions. And fruitless missions to buy Amelie a present ("I want either a Hello Kitty dressed as a rabbit, of a pink cuddly slime, or a football with Hello Kitty on it, or all of those and something else. And so does Genevieve.") become seriously irksome.
On the plus side, I did manage to see Godzilla today. Not the real one, obviously (er, very obviously), but a lovingly rendered bronze statue on a street corner, artfully arranged so as to appear to be menacing the building next to it. I love stuff like that, it appears that the Japanese have as much cultural revenance for giant space lizards as they do for Shinto shrines. It's a pity UK culture isn't the same: I feel that a 80ft high status of, say, Dangermouse somewhere on the South Bank would be very fitting...