cedar fever season, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Allergy season in Tokyo starts around this time. In these parts people do not suffer from Hayfever, but Cedarfever from the pollen of the Japanese cedar tree (Sugi in Japanese). I suppose that, like in the UK, it is really the mixture of pollen and manmade pollution that causes the problem, so that the suffering may be worse in the towns than in the forested areas. So far James and I have been mercifully Cederfever free, but many people do get quite seriously affected.

As James mentioned earlier, it was forecast that this year should be a worse Cedarfever season than usual - about twice as bad. While visiting Sugimotodera, a particularly aptly named temple, James decided to shake a tree to see what it was all about. We were both rather surprised by the massive plume of pollen that fell from the tree.