The day I came back to Hokkaido, the sun decided to come out for the first time in the year. And we enjoyed about a week's worth of summer-like weather! Some people commented that I brought the sun back from California. But this is Japan, so after such a comment there was some light-hearted laughter. Man, I went to the wrong country to be a missionary! If I went to some remote animist village in the middle of Africa or on some island in the Pacific, people would worship me for "bringing the sun!" Maybe, there's a reason why God put me in Japan...

On a related note, today marked the end of the week of summer. It rained today. So I busted out with my Gap $5 poncho that I got from LA. Aww yeah. In college, when it was raining, I'd ride down the streets on my bicycle, purposely riding over the steam vents from the manholes so that I'd be able to say "I'm Batman" like Michael Keaton. Am I a dork? Maybe. Well, alas, I don't have a bicycle here and there isn't any steam mysteriously rising out of manholes here in the city of Date.

Speaking of that mystery steam in Berkeley, my freshman year roommate used to go out of his way to avoid walking near the stuff so that he wouldn't inhale any it. We had the same English class our first semester. And it was at the end of the day so after class we'd walk back to Bowles, our dorm. The path back to Bowles was littered with those manholes. I didn't think much of them so I just walked straight through them if they were in the way of my semi-straight line back to my dorm. Not him. We'd be talking and all of a sudden he'd stop, walk around the manhole with about a 6-10 foot buffer from the steam, join up with me again after his mini-journey, and continue the conversation like nothing happened. He'd say something to the effect of, "Hey, when you get something like a third eye popping outta your forehead, and I don't... we'll know why." I'll admit that the steam smelled kinda funny, but causing a third eye?