Today is REALLY hot. Apparently, it's hotter than Okinawa right now (Okinawa is the island south of Kyushu that's supposedly the hottest place in Japan), at a sizzling 31 degrees.

Previous to today, I've been too stingy to use my air conditioner (I use too much electricity on my computer, which is constantly on and downloading music these days!). However, I find that I just cannot work in this heat (am supposed to be writing a survey for my Durham project in Japanese, which is going at a rate of about one word per hour). Not even the skull-print folding fan I bought yesterday is keeping me cool. So, I may have to just switch it on...

Here's an interesting random little fact about Kumamoto: the height of Mt. Aso, our local volcano, is 1,592m. I can remember that off the top of my head. Why?

The old name for Kumamoto is Higo Kuni (which means "Land of Fire," on account of how hot it is here!). And as Japanese students know, the numbers 1,5,9 and 2, can be pronounced HI-GO-KU-NI...Higo Kuni! So Mt. Aso's height spells out the name of the county in which it is located...isn't that an amazing coincidence?!

Japanese of the Day: 狸 - tanuki