On days when Tokyo is hotter than Bangkok – physically, not figuratively – the heat can top 40 degrees centigrade for several hours. If you want to survive to tourist another day, here are some tricks to keep your cool. And you cool.
Tokyo can get hot in summer. Dangerously hot. Already in May, temperatures creep above 30 degrees centigrade, and the city starts to swelter. Come July, the temperatures can be higher than in Bangkok.
There may be a short reprieve during the rainy season, which typically lasts from the end of May to the beginning of July — the rain cools things down. But in the last few years, Tokyo has increasingly been getting heat instead of rain — to the extent that typhoons feel like a relief. Even if they actually are the culprit, bringing in hotter air. Especially when they pass to the south of the country, since the cyclone does not pull down cool northern air to the Tokyo area.
During July, typhoon or no typhoon, temperatures start to rise and continue to rise. Tokyo is located on a huge plain, but there are low mountains along the coastline obstructing the sea breeze, making the hot air stay over the city. This has been exacerbated by the city building its own little chain of mountains.
While Tokyo has surprising green spots, they hardly make any difference among the paved roads and high-rises. Tokyo is not one big pan of concrete, either. The interaction between the islands of high-rises and the surrounding lower buildings creates its own microclimates, which means there can be a rainstorm in Ikebukuro while the sky is clear in Shiodome.
The microclimates affect precipitation, cloud cover, and thunderstorms, but they do not generate extra heat. There is plenty of that to go around.
The high-rises of Tokyo do tend to trap the hot air in the canyons between them, especially on days when there is no wind. The black asphalt that covers the streets of Tokyo contributes further to heating the city. As does, paradoxically, the cooling.
The stores, shopping malls, department stores, movie theatres, offices, and stations in Tokyo are all cooled using air-conditioning, often lowering the temperature to ridiculously low temperatures, making it necessary for office workers to wear a woolen winter suit or bring a blanket. The government, however, has been running a very successful campaign for several years. Called ”cool biz”, it was intended to waste less energy by turning up the temperature in offices one or two degrees, not enough to get warm but enough to drop the blankets.
As part of the ”cool biz” campaign, clothing chains are promoting ”business casual” to replace suits in summer, something that took off properly during the pandemic.
But the buildings still have to be cooled, and the hot air has to be dumped somewhere. An air conditioner works like a pump, pumping heat from the cool side to the hot side, but then you have to remove the heat from the hot side. Otherwise, the two will eventually balance, and pumping heat will become meaningless.
In Tokyo, like most modern cities, the solution is to blow away the heat. Huge fans suck air through cooling towers on top of most office buildings, removing the heat by dumping it into the atmosphere surrounding the building. That is right, dumping hot air into the already hot air.
Since the many tall buildings also serve to block out the wind, except when it blows straight down the canyon-like streets, the hot air tends to stay, and walking outdoors can become difficult. Staying hydrated is the first step, and if you have a child in a stroller, you want to make sure they stay hydrated too — although this is notoriously difficult with small babies, who are still on baby formula. Do not make the mistake of feeding them diluted formula. It does not help slake the thirst, and it can ruin their kidneys. Better to give them plain water.
Those who are a bit more grown-up will find a new appreciation for the ubiquitous vending machines, providing cold drinks basically anywhere across Japan. There are even vending machines on top of mt Fuji. While prices have gone up in recent years, the price of cold drinks is still reasonable. And the vending machines are an excellent place to dump your change. Just be careful in stations, because the vending machines there are set up to only take Suica cards.
The favorite Japanese summer treat is cool, too. The ice cream shelf of the convenience stores offers new surprises every year, with the “Gari-Gari-Kun” ice bars working hard to bring a new surprise every year. While watermelon is a favorite, consommé and ketchup pasta (Napolitan in Japanese) were deservedly less successful. Others give it their best, too, although potato ice cream was maybe over the top for most people.
But the ice desserts, which are the most cooling and best tasting, are not the ice bars but the treats that you can get in old-style stalls along the road. It has enjoyed a renaissance thanks to the surge of interest in Japanese traditional deserts, but “kakigori”, shaved ice, is something many people find delightful enough to enjoy all year round. Kakigori restaurants have started to show up in high-end restaurant gallerias, not just in their traditional locations.
When you are going about the city, you may want to stay in the shade as much as possible. The Navi time navigation app has a unique feature: It shows which side of the street will be in shadow. A very useful feature when the weather turns hot.
Drugstores and convenience stores will be full of heat-beating gadgets. Personal fans, necklaces that you put in the freezer to cool you down when you wear them around your neck, heat-reflecting T-shirts, anything to keep you cool. You might want to get something for your dog, too. As you probably know, dogs can not sweat, so they need to cool down more than humans.
But at some point, getting out of the heat is the only thing that helps. In the Tokyo area, many shopping centers and stations have been assigned “heat refugees”, where you can take shelter for a few hours and cool down. The ground under the big stations, like Tokyo, Shinjuku, and Ikebukuro stations, is riddled with passageways going back and forth. All deliciously cooled
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