I really am. The sky is golden white and the mountains are gone, as are some of the buildings I usually see from my office window. The air smells like a baseball field on a hot summer day, but it’s not particularly hot, or summer, and the only baseball is on television. A thin film stains the windows and my car, which I had lovingly driven through a car wash just recently.
I suppose most people don’t associate Japan with dust storms. I didn’t either, at least until last year, when we got it pretty badly. The sand, and this is what I find extraordinary, is blown all the way from the deserts of China. Here’s a beautiful and frightening satellite picture of the sands blowing over China, Korea and Japan.
While washing my car, again, is going to be a minor pain, I can’t help finding these golden hues slightly mystical. It looks as though the landscape out my window had been painted on paper a long time ago, and yellowed with age.