Freezing Flowers of Death

One of the few joys of living in Tokyo during winter-cum-spring is what I call the Freezing Flowers of Death!!! Its currently hanami season (cherry blossom), and all the pretty pink flowers are fluttering softly to the ground - like little gay angels in an aerial mardi gra.

But combine this with the scrotum-shrinking frostiness of winter and the battering monsoon of new-spring, and you get to experience the Freezing Flowers of Death!!! Stand still long enough, and you just get pelted with pink buds. On the plus side, you do end up looking very pretty, with flowers plastered to your forehead.

Case in point - I woke up this morning and the rain was softly sprinkling down - no wucking furries for a true blue dinki di Aussie, so I'm walking to Uni with a fellow umbrella-less Aussie, all the while making jokes about the passing "crazy Japanese" and their umbrellas. Ho ho! What a jolly good time we had deriding our neighbours. This was my first mistake.

My second mistake was thinking that because it was humid outside and unusually warm, I should wear a cotton shirt. Oh no, how wrong I was! The temperature dropped a good 10 degrees, and on came the monsoon. So here's me - wearing my light, white cotton shirt, heavy jeans, and my new blue suede shoes (seriously) - standing in the middle of a monsoon getting battered with horizontal rain. It's a safe bet that a good number of my new Uni chums now have a fair idea what my nipples look like through my soaking wet shirt - and perhaps the better part of metropoliton Tokyo do as well.

What a sight! I'm sure all the girls at Uni were impressed... "Yep, ladies, it hard to believe, I know - I'm single!! Just form a line and write your contact details and measurements and leave a photo of yourself in this black book... Arigatou!"