As another watery and unwelcome rainy season sluices uninvited into a forlorn but resigned Tokyo, thoughts inevitably move to the controversial topic of umbrellas.
You can tell a lot about people by their umbrellas. And you can tell long-term gaijin because they'll be the ones with the good ones.
Mine is a black hiking umbrella. It's telescopic (about six inches long), so it fits nicely in my bag. (I've never been a fan of full-sized umbrellas because (1) you can't just put them in your bag and carry them around every day, thus eliminating the need to join the National Weather Forecast Obsession Club or get the kousuikakuritsu (percentage chance of rain) piped in by RSS and (2) you have to leave them outside convenience stores, enabling some law-abiding citizen to abscond with them in a savage but beautiful moment of criminal tendency.)
It's fully automatic, so you can put it up and collapse it with one hand while on the trail (or not), and the material is of satisfyingly good quality, especially the cover. It's got a rubber loop coming out of the handle, so you can attach it to your wrist and carry it hands-free (or clap a little). It's quite lightweight, but it doesn't have a compass in the handle like some of the other hiking ones do, not that you or I would have any idea what to do with a compass anyway. It cost 2,700 yen (27 times the cost of a 100 yen umbrella, I think you'll find) and I bought it in Ishi Sports, Okubo, Tokyo about six months ago.
I'm quite attached to the little fellow.
How about yours? Is it ornate? Did you steal it? Does it take USB II?
Posted by Setsunai at June 10, 2005 2:55 PM | TrackBackI used to have one of those 100 yen brollies, but never again.
It was telescopic with a an 'in use' diameter of about six inches, it was difficult open (and close), it was pale pink, and one day during a strong breeze it turned inside out and ended up in someone's garden.
I must be a mid-term foreigner because my current brolly cost 1000 yen.
Umbrellas are useless in Ireland, too windy, best to stay inside.
Posted by: Speedy at June 10, 2005 6:04 PM | Permalink to CommentFunny, but I only ever owned an umbrella in Japan. When I lived in Oregon, where, like Ireland, it rains nearly all the time but not hard like here, and it was just a great bother to use an umbrella and no one much cared.
I think I have the same hiking umbrella as you, Setsunai, a Mont-Bell hiking umbrella, though in taupe. The handle can be uncrewed and reversed so that it forms a larger handle for a better grip.
I'm trying to design and make a new kind of hiking umbrella that can take the wind and also be used as a tent awning. It uses a trekking pole for its shaft and uses a more waterproof and very strong material called X-Ply. If I can get it just right perhaps it will give hikers a new kind of rain protection...
Erm... I just sat here taking time to write about umbrellas! Must be hurting for excitement!
By the way, I love the rainy season. The temperature is just right and the light can be very beautiful. Something very quiet about this season.
Posted by: butuki at June 10, 2005 7:28 PM | Permalink to CommentUmbrellas are desparate things altogher. I don't think I've ever had one that lasted for more than one use. Can't think where they all ended up. Maybe there is a secret meeting place for them somewhere away from their mortal enemy, the wind. I wonder if there is a hierarchy of umbrellas? I just can't see the "golf umbrellas" giving orders that any other self-respecting brolly would give a damn about. Maybe the parosols run things..........
Posted by: mick at June 10, 2005 10:52 PM | Permalink to CommentI reckon the golf umbrellas would be heavies, Mick, probably working for the parasols.
Posted by: Setsunai at June 12, 2005 11:22 PM | Permalink to CommentYou know exactly where the 100 yen brollies would be on the scale of things though.
Posted by: Luke at June 13, 2005 10:50 AM | Permalink to Comment