Japan is infamous for it's rainy season (tsuyu・つゆ・梅雨) that lasts from June all the way until mid July. The days are hot, humid, and rainy. Usually not a day goes by without some rain. In other words, "it's not the heat - it's the humidity," and you can't even catch a good ol' fashioned southern breeze here. Where's the sweet ice tea??
As for the research, coming together (little by little), my supervisor came back after being awhile and we decided on proceeding with the objective: trade off between direct GHG mitigation of AWD and lower yield, possibly leading to indirect land use change and "carbon leakage." Just have to revamp my lit search a bit to include the new terms "indirect land use change" and "carbon leakage." Shouldn't be too difficult, I'm also going to check around for some general LCA books, it'd be grand if they had one that related to agriculture.
As for the non-research related front, spent the weekend moving into my my accommodation, not too shabby. Larger than the hotel of course by still small, even for Japan standards. It's about a 50 min walk to the research facility and 30 min walk to the main train station so that's pretty convenient. After the move, I ventured into Tokyo to revisit the old sights and sounds of the city. Still can't get over how true this video is...and it's already a number of years old.