As I wrote about last week it has been raining a lot, and the rain has continued. I have bad memories from times of heavy rain. When I was living in Sweden I experienced a big flooding in the village where I was living and houses were all surrounded by water from the overflowing river. When my wife was pregnant with our son and we were living in Tokyo, we were asked to evacuate during a typhoon that threatened to flood the big Tamagawa river. I used to always feel stress whenever rain was pouring down, but moving to Fukuoka has completely changed my feelings towards rain.
We are so fortunate as to be living in a house where we do not need to worry about flooding, so as it is now I must say I rather enjoy the rainy season here (as long as I do not have to take too many bicycle rides in torrential downpour). Listening to the rain patter against the window is very soothing when going to bed, and our surroundings are more beautiful than ever when the green of nature gets beautified with pearls of rain. When we walk to the kindergarten bus in the morning it is under a big big umbrella and while waiting for the bus that is usually late when there is a lot of rain, my son and I pretend we are in a tent and we play word games and guess what car will pass by next.
There have been news this spring about the ground water level being low and an upcoming risk of water shortages this summer so thinking of that as well, a lot of rain is a good thing. The warm humidity outside I have also come to somehow enjoy, but indoor humidity is a pain in the summer. Two years ago we bought a dehumidifier and that device has made all the difference so now the humid summers feel quite manageable inside our house. Emptying the water container of the dehumidifier gives such a strong visual impression of how much water is actually floating around in the air, and has led to many interesting conversations with my son when he has wanted me to explain where all this water come from.
I really enjoy to experience my son’s curiosity in our every day life. He always has questions for me, but he also likes to tell me about things he has learned and explain them to me. Like how to do origami or play the Star Wars theme on his piano. Or what Ojizo-san are. My son has seen small stone statues on his kindergarten excursions, and they have talked about these protectors of children from Buddhist and Japanese folk beliefs, Ojizo-san. My son has been very curious about them and wanted to share with me what he had seen. Which brings me to the Sennyo-ji temple on the Raizan mountain – I was going to write about our excursions to the mountain in this post as well, but I will save that for next week to give Raizan the space it deserves.