The heat is going to break soon. The forecast says so, but I also feel it. There have been a few rainstorms in the evenings and it's been a few degrees cooler around sunset. The difference between 97 and 93 is pretty striking. Really, you can tell, and my Austin friends will back me up. We've all become heat connoisseurs this summer.
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, this summer is dead to me. My social calendar is starting to pick up a bit and we're starting to make decisions on the Japan trip in October. It's both exciting and a little sad to take an entire country and narrow it down to a few neighborhoods. Whenever I'm planning a big trip I always worry that there's some other, better trip, the greatest, most amazing trip ever that we could be taking, if I were just smarter and more diligent with the research. But I think this will be a hard one to screw up.
The most exciting thing to me right now is that we've decided to splurge on a ryokan for a night. It's traditional Japanese lodging, and as I understand it, you check in, go soak in the hot spring baths for a while, and then put on a robe and slippers and wait until someone brings you an insane Japanese dinner. You gorge, then go out and wander around the grounds while someone clears out the dinner mess and lays out your straw mats and futon. Then you come back and pass out. I have stayed in some pretty decent hotels, but I think even the simplest ryokan is going to kick the living shit out of 600 thread count sheets and rosemary shampoo samples in the bathroom.