Dear Mark,

You and some others have expressed some interest in Japan, so here are the answers to your questions from the comment box below.

How cold, hot, does Tokyo get? Snow ever?
Steinar could probably come up with an answer to that faster than I can. Uhh. Let’s see. Thank you, Google (no link necessary, LOL). I found a page with all the answers.

Tokyo has an annual average temperature of 15.6 C (60.1 F). The month with the highest average is August at 27.1 C (80.8 F) and that with the lowest is January at 5.2 C (41.4 F). The record summer high is 39.1 C (102.4 F) and the lowest winter temperature recorded is -9 C (15.8 F). The hot days of summer are often accompanied by high humidity and are therefore extremely muggy.

Average annual precipitation is 1,405mm, relatively high for a city in the temperate zone. The wettest month is June with an average rainfall of 185mm and the driest is January with an average of 45mm.

On an annual average there is one rainy day per week. In fact, however, it is rainy or cloudy three fourths of the time during the rainy season and is clear two thirds of the time during the winter months. In winter, it is not uncommon to have a dry spell lasting one month or more.

Tokyo generally has between one and three light snows per season. [Emeth's comment: Very light snow. So light that it usually disappears on the same day or the next. It's not usually fit to be called snow, really. It's slush.]

Please bear in mind that these statistics are from over 10 years ago and that the temperature of the city of Tokyo is rising every year. You can get more info on this if you go to Google and search through the results for “Tokyo weather.”

Mexican restaraunts?
There aren’t any in the suburbs, but if you go way downtown where all the gaijin (foreigners) are, I’ve heard there are a few.

Other sorts of restaraunts?
You can get food from any continent in the world (except maybe Antarctica) made by chefs from that country. There is anything and everything you can imagine here … if you are willing to hunt it down and pay for it.

Does Tokyo have an “America-town?”
Well, sort of. There is a place called Roppongi (”Six Trees”) where a lot of gaijin go to. Japanese who want to meet gaijin go there, too. It used to be a very nice, high-class area of town, and it is still an important area, but most of the gaijin now go there for … what can I say?

Roppongi is Tokyo’s current active nexus of sin where the highest concentration of foreigners can be found any night after 6pm. More….

Roppongi is a town where the old and the new coexist. More….

“Korea-town?”
There are a lot of Koreans all over Japan. They were kidnapped, enslaved, and brought to Japan. I blogged a bit about this in June. There isn’t anything like a Korean version of Chinatown. There are clusters of Koreans here and there but most of them just live among the Japanese.

How strong is nationalism/patriotism?
Among the older people, especially those who grew up before or during the war, it is stronger. But that kind of spirit has pretty much disappeared. Actually, there is so little conscious patriotism among the people that the Japanese government is getting worried, and starting to teach Japanese mythology to school children again … the sort they taught them before the War. This looks like a good site for those of you interested in Japan and its history.

Also known as the “Prince Yamato Myth” (Nihan Shoki / Kojiki), the founding myth of Japan involves the relation between man and the Kami or Natural Spirits/’gods’. The Kami came into existence on a plane parallel to the Prime Material, whence Japan is created after Izanagi (the male) ‘dips his spear into the ocean’ and creates Japan along with Izanami (the female). They produce a pantheon of gods, and it is through this natural divinity that the hegemony of the Yamato House is mythically legitimized.

There are supposedly two main familial branches, both claiming the same divine origin: the kobetsu (the Emperor and the Nobles, known as the ‘Imperial Branch’) and the shimbetsu (other lesser clans, known as the ‘Divine Branch’). Below them were the masses, known as bambetsu (’Foreign Branch’).

– The Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, bears a divinity-child, Ninigi.
– Ninigi gives birth to Jimmu Tenno, who (according to myth) constructed a palace on the Plain of Yamato in 660 BCE
– Therefore, Amaterasu is a mechanism of legitimacy for feudal Japan’s national polity, Kokutai

Kokutai refers to the traditional assertion that feudal Japanese have divine roots, and but one Imperial line. Therefore, it was believed that they were humanely superior to the rest of the world, which was destined to become part of the global Japanese empire of the future.

Do people love McDonald’s?
I don’t know a single person who would say he loves McDonald’s, but it’s very popular, yes. There’s a McDonald’s in front of every big or middle-size train station and many in the suburbs, too. The McDonald’s here tastes a bit different from the McDonald’s in America. And the menu is pretty different, too. Oh, and there are all sorts of “specials” that are only made for Japan and which are changed all the time.

OK. How’s that for one day?