Heat (Nakasendo Diary)
Heat in Tokyo with a cloudy sky and no wind. Heat in Gunma and Gifu under the sun. Heat at night at a summer festival, and the glossy faces of girls in yukata or t-shirts. Heat while hearing glass chimes that are a prayer to make you feel cooler. Heat that construction workers try to blow away with electric fans sewn into their clothing. Sweating without end, continuously drinking water, cooling down in a convenience store. Going to a hot springs bath even though it’s hot.
These days, it’s even hotter than it used to be. There is a new word for when it’s really hot, “cruelly hot day” (kokushobi). Just a little while before I visited Gunma prefecture, the highest temperature ever observed across Japan was recorded there.