Even the weather is on a schedule in Japan

It's no secret 'we' Japanese love timetables: Friends arrive for rendez-vous early or on time, the bus schedule (unlike in Ireland) is not a work of fiction, and it goes without saying that you can set your watch by the trains.
Even the weather patterns are so predictable it seems they're following a cosmic timetable.
Above is a picture of some plum blossoms entering full bloom about now. They come into flower just after the typical springtime 三寒四温　(san kan shi on - three days of cold weather followed by four days of hot weather) and just before 春一番　(haru ichiban - the first gales of spring). You'll also often here people say, '厚さ寒さ彼岸まで' (atsusa samusa higan made - the heat or the cold will last until either equinox).
On the one hand, it makes you feel really connected to nature to have the year mapped out so clearly in the landscape and in the climate.
On the other hand, I feel sure it makes the time slip by even quicker. As soon as you feel the mixed up cold and hot weather, you know the plums are on the way. This indicates the strong winds are coming. So you start to look forward to the arrival of the cherry blossoms, But once they get here, you have to prepare yourself for the onslaught of the rainy season. This will finally break only to introduce the hot humid summer, where every day tips thirty and you sweat buckets. Just when you think it can't get any worse, typhoons come along to hammer the beejaysus out of you. You won't get any relief until autumn, when the leaves turn red and gold and fall to the ground. Then it's time for the cold of winter, and the whole thing starts again.