Every June, I feel a slight apprehension coming on. From autumn through spring, it seems as though the Northern Hemisphere eagerly awaits this month. To many, it marks the beginning of the best quarter of the year: three months from which an entire year’s worth of living must be squeezed. For me, summer has always felt like an inconvenience.

My lethargy towards the season has never much inspired summer travel. Growing up across Indo-Pacific cities, where summer always lingered too long, I thought instead of winters abroad. So, when a four-week window to travel opened last July, I had a decision to make. Though the Japanese summer would be gathering heat, I still wanted to spend it in Tokyo.

Until then, my impression of Japan’s summer came mostly from film. Japanese cinema does not tend to glamorise the season. Instead, physical realities set the scene. In many seasonal cultures, summer seems to ask that we defer all else to seize the outdoors and spend time in the sun. I enjoy being outside, but summer is not what draws me there. In the films I had watched, however, the season was simply a backdrop to the characters’ adversities. Connecting with this portrayal, I grew curious and set off for my first July in Japan.

I arrived on a hazy Saturday afternoon and took the Narita Express to Shinjuku before changing to the subway. Making my way across the city underground, I had yet to step outdoors. Everything operated just as I remembered. The airport’s polished tiles suggested that the cleaning staff had maintained their usual standards despite the hot weather. Tokyoites funnelled through the network in the usual fashion.

Exiting the station, I encountered the city air for the first time, a sensation I will not forget. The atmosphere felt sealed, like a bubble of heat that would not burst. Cloud cover appeared to soften the sun’s harsh rays, but made barely any difference to the temperature. As an archipelago surrounded by warming seas, Japan faces increasing humidity during summer. Combined with hot, dry air bearing down from above, it creates a blanket of heat over the country, bringing long stretches of days above 30 degrees from mid-July onwards. Standing beneath it, I considered my next steps.

I don’t typically travel to Tokyo with a fixed plan. Strict itineraries tend to result in a rush to fit everything in. Instead, I mark neighbourhoods of interest on the map as an outline and leave the rest to intuition. On this trip, I had a two-part strategy: I would base myself in an area I already knew and explore the surrounding neighbourhoods on foot. That led me to Kagurazaka, a hilly neighbourhood at the eastern edge of Shinjuku City. In the heat, however, my plan to walk between districts needed rethinking.

Heat has always affected me profoundly. All my energy diverts towards regulating my body temperature and finding ways to cool down. My routine falters, and my sense of urgency fades. Travelling by train, I decided, would conserve the energy needed to walk the neighbourhoods themselves—my summer method for traversing the city.

I got to know the Tozai Line well, taking it west through Takadanobaba to its terminus in Nakano, and east to Iidabashi and Nihombashi. I often changed at Kudanshita for the Shinjuku Line, completing my main set of neighbourhoods for the trip. In each area, the crowds around me appeared unfazed by the climate. Office workers wore regular business attire. Schoolchildren hurried along in long skirts and socks. I got the impression that summer was simply another condition to work around. Fatigue, if it existed, stayed mostly private. At first, I could not relate.

The expectation that individual discomfort should not disrupt the functioning of daily life still seems to prevail in many settings. It is a type of resilience often attributed to Japan’s historic cycles of disaster, destruction and rapid recovery. I wondered whether the same spirit extended to extreme weather. In the midst of a heatwave or on the brink of a typhoon, life at the societal level often appears to carry on with little outward complaint, save for the occasional passing remark.

Of my ten-day stay, just one morning was graced by a cool breeze. It was a Friday, and without hesitation, I chose to walk. From Kagurazaka Station, I headed north-east along the Kanda River, passing streams of composed commuters near Iidabashi Station. I continued to Ochanomizu and paused on Hijiri Bridge to watch the Chūō, Sobu and Marunouchi lines cross beneath me in unison, their yellow, orange and red trains like a July sunset.

Resilient as Tokyoites may be, I also noticed their subtle adaptations. UV umbrellas popped up throughout the city, deflecting and absorbing the sun’s rays. Handheld fans whirred, cooling flushed faces. Small towels designed to drape around the neck and absorb sweat appeared on convenience-store shelves. Business attire loosened here and there under workplace energy-saving initiatives. It was the city’s own suite of unpretentious yet effective solutions.

I looped south towards Kagurazaka through Sotobori Park’s greenway. Through gaps in the trees, I caught sight of the dense cityscape to the west, where the buildings of Honshiochō and Yotsuya rose like colourful Lego bricks, shimmering in the haze. Walking along the river that afternoon, I felt unexpectedly at peace. Cool in my own skin, even.

Summer in Tokyo arrives with intensity. It lingers longer each year, but eventually gives way to the next season. Through it all, the city remains stoically itself. As I write during a London heatwave, I feel the weight of summer again. Since last July, however, I have decided to meet each summer a little more like Tokyo: with a stable mindset, sustained productivity and gratitude that, however long it lasts, it will pass. I could never hate summer. I like that it comes, but I appreciate that it goes.

✺ Kiara

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