My home town of San Diego has just two seasons: sunny and slightly less sunny. In contrast, Japan has very distinct seasons, with hot, humid summers, freezing winters, two rainy seasons and so on. Each season in Japan has different smells associated with it, and turning on your kerosene heater for the first time in winter will make you very natsukashii (nostalgic) for winters past, for some reason. It’s starting to heat up in Japan now, and mosquitoes are buzzing noisily inside our house, so my wife broke out the katori senko, “mosquito-killing incense” (mosquito coils) which burn for hours giving off a pleasant smoke that kills the flying pests. Burning mosquito coils have a unique smell associated with summer that always makes me reminisce about good times in days gone by. Though mosquitoes feast on my wife constantly during the warmer months, I am lucky: for some odd reason they don’t seem to find my gaiijn blood tasty and generally leave me alone.
I love the smell of mosquito coils in the morning.
