Tokyo has been getting pissed on for about four days straight now.

Day and night, we are bombarded by incessant, tiny droplets of water, sometimes falling heavily, but usually floating in light blankets of moisture that are tolerable only during short walks, of which we have none. Thus, we students, like the buildings, streets and land, remain completely soaked through, despite our best efforts to remain dry with expert use of the most important tool in Japan: the umbrella.

You simply can't leave home without one.

Over the past two weeks, I have become an expert at using the umbrella in all manner of circumstances: from maneuvering safely through a jam packed Omotesando on Sunday, to properly shielding a camera at a drenched Toshogu Shrine, I have learned the ins-and-outs of carrying an umbrella with you constantly, as if it were an extension of the arm. Now, if I could only learn how to use it as well as an arm, and perhaps keep myself somewhat dry.

It's not that the umbrella doesn't work, it's just that over a long enough walk, any device designed to keep water out becomes useless, and the owner becomes part of the environment: that is, wet. Typically, I walk around with both my ankles and backpack drenches because they fall just outside the very small protective radius of the umbrella.

But, for all of their shortcomings, umbrellas are an essential part of life in Japan, and one can purchase a nice little canopy at literally every store in every ward of Tokyo. Forgot your umbrella at home, or perhaps left it on the Subway? No problem, because before you "kasa" is to the next stop on the Chiyoda line, you can pick up a new on just about anywhere: the Starbucks at the station, the porn store nearby, even the homeless man sleeping just outside--umbrellas abound...

It will only cost you about 1$, which is probably the best investment you can make in Tokyo, because, like it said, it never stops fucking raining.

Oh, and there's a typhoon coming, which should be here just in time for the weekend.

Four days of rain later... I'm tired, I'm ready for sun again. The human body was not built to carry an umbrella everywhere... and yet... I endure.