Umbrellas

When I was growing up in Worcester, umbrellas were for sissys. Cool kids didn't mind getting wet...more than that, it gave them something to bitch about. Plus, everybody had cars, all you had to do was run from your car to the mall, school, house, gas station...whatever.

After moving to NYC, sans car, I began to understand the benefits of umbrellas. Not that I liked them...although maybe nobody LIKES umbrellas.

These days, in Tokyo, I have 3 umbrellas: 1 at work, 1 at home, and 1 compact one for rainy season. The season consisting of a month+ of on & off again rain. Not a happy time for anyone in the city.

Here in Japan there is another type of umbrella: the summer UV parasol. I see them every sunny day. You would imagine that it is mostly popular with women of the elderly persuasion, but there you would be wrong. It is quite a mixed group, of course there are the older women, but you also see many many younger women with the summer umbrellas. Even my girl has one, and she is NOT old. She also just told me they are expensive!!!! (13,000YEN) Yikes!

Men in Japan never use the summer umbrellas...nor shall I.