Our son and grandkids met us at the Haneda Airport when we arrived in Tokyo after a thirteen and a half hour flight from Toronto. I was glad to see them. We had been awake for most of the flight since it was during the day and didn't feel alert enough to manage finding their new address. All the way to the apartment, we kept hearing about all the "bugs". I was beginning to wonder until we got out of the Uber van our son had arranged and heard the noise. It was cicadas.
We had our seventeen year cicadas back home in Ohio this past June/July and they were plenty noisy. Their Japanese counterparts were just as vocal. The cicada season in Japan is July to September. I'm guessing that we are now in the peak of the season in August. And apparently it happens every year here.
As we walked to the Tokyo Tower we had to stop every so often because as all little boys do--and some girls too, they had to pick up the cicadas they found and examine them as well as the shells that looked like large beetles that they emerge from.
The Japanese cicada is a little different looking than ours back home. Their eyes are not a bright red and they appear to be a bid stodgier than ours. They can still sing quite a song as they spend their week of life attracting a mate. It does cover up some of the traffic noise of a big city.
