Snowy Day

Actually not really. Most of the time, it was just rain and sleet. The snow doesn’t stay but it’s heavier than the one that we had when I attended the earthquake drill.

February is here and it also means we will have more wet days, so please get ready with your umbrella. The cheapest umbrellas are the clear and transparent ones. Some shops sell them for 300 yen.

I remember seeing that kind of umbrella for the first time maybe 25 years ago on the window display of a fancy shop around Marble Arch, London. I thought it was such a sexy see-through umbrella, then. It cost £20. 😱 Definitely not the kind of umbrella a student would use.

But now in Japan, because it’s too common, it had somehow lost its appeal. I wanted to be different last year, so I got a solid red colour umbrella. My husband borrowed it and left it in his office and then it simply disappeared. Someone must have ‘borrowed’ it.

A few days ago, I saw the transparent umbrellas being sold at a nearby shop. These ones are styled differently. Instead of having black frames and handles, they have colourful ones.

So today, when I returned from the Japanese class (we had completed book I and will start with book II Minna no Nihongo next week) and the rain turned heavier, I went and bought one with a purple handle.

See, I’m too sexy for my umbrella. 😜

Around me however, I observed many people were using solid colour umbrellas with patterns instead. Yeah, it was either they were still using their summer umbrellas or those were actually their early purchase for the coming spring.

(This was written last Thursday, the 9th of February. We had heavier snow on Friday. After my two-week’s absence, did you expect to see such a vain topic? Well, did you want me to rant about Trump’s crazy travel ban, instead? You might wish I never started, if I did. So, I’d rather stay on safe topics. 😊)