(written August 6)

Three weeks ago I was walking down the streets of Houston, Texas, a plastic to-go cup of iced coffee in my hand. Waiting for the little white man to flash at a crosswalk, I sipped from the long green straw. Droplets of sweat strung across my forehead; I brushed them aside periodically with my free hand. The slightly overcast sky hung thick and heavy, condensing the air below into a stagnant mass of invisible liquid.

“Mushiatsui!” I would have exclaimed under my breath if I had known the word. I stumbled across it today in the index of my Japanese textbook—“sultry.” An apt word, perhaps, to describe much of the summer weather in this country.

For most of the last two weeks, gray masses have been hovering over the mountains around Hokuto City, occasionally descending and dumping their contents on the town. When they recede, mists ooze up from the puddles in the streets and the soaked black soil in the fields, and with one step in any direction, my skin is dampened and my clothes stick to my body. Then I reach again for my iced coffee, bring the clay cup to my lips and thank the Dutch (who knew?) for scattering those little brown (when they're roasted) beans across the oceans as far as the land of tea.