Hot weather continues but the summer season came officially to end last weekend. At homes, schools have started, at offices it's talks about the 2011 budgets. It's autumn now, calendars say.

A couple of nice events colored the end of the summer fun here in Tokyo. One was just pure private fun - the FCCJ Yakatabune cruise. It's such long time ago since the last one that I really enjoyed it and so seemed all other members. My apologies if I "enjoyed" too much! The other two events were big, public and spectacular: the annual samba festival in Asakusa and the "Yosakoi" in Omotesando which seems to be trying to become annual as well.

About half a million people lined up the streets in Asakusa again for the hot rhythms and 3500 colorful dancers from all over Japan. It is amazing how Japanese people have adopted Brazil - and Latin America in whole - as their "second homeland". It is not only because there are so many Brazilian immigrants here, it is something else. Even Japan footballers think they play "the Brazilian way", easy flowing passing, not ugly and aggressive. If only they could learn to score as well as Brazilians do.

Yosakoi matsuri comes originally from Kochi where the real event takes three days, but smaller, one day substitutes around Tokyo have become popular, too, and Harajuku-Omotesando is one of them. This year 100 well rehearsed and colorfully dressed teams from all over Kanto area - and Kochi itself, of course - danced their way through the Omotesando Dori lined up by shady trees and luxury boutiques. There was not as many spectators as in Asakusa and some of them seemed more interested in their shopping but many stopped to admire the energy, intensity and devotion of the young teams despite the scorching heat. The dancing style was not traditional Japanese odori and neither was the music blasting from trucks with big speakers - it was more like a combination of traditional matsuri, enka, disco pop and hip hop. After all complaints you hear about the lifelessness and degrading in Japan economy and society, it's always good to experience there is so much energy still left in this country. If only it could be released somehow better for the economic effect, no just fun.

Talking about economy, it seemed to have run against a brick wall with the release of 2Q.GDP figures and the outlooks for next few months are definitely much cooler than the ones for weather. Japanese people's willingness to dish out money from the wallet and spend it on something is becoming very restrained again if it ever was well up. Same for company investments - the outlooks at home market never were too good and now they seem to slow down in many export markets, too. Two heavy extra burdens to overcome are the deflation and the high JPY value. Put together, they act like a stone around neck for Japan economy.

For FY2009 that ended in March, many of Japan's big companies reported great improvement in their results, but almost all of that came from cost saving measures - there's no doubt Japanese are champions when it comes to saving. It is more difficult to create some new value and new business to consumers that "have seen it all" and while there might be interest for many Japanese products overseas, it is difficult to sell them at competitive price because of high JPY costs. The other side of the coin, of course, is that the high JPY supports outgoing investment, both corporates and private. The figures show that this benefit is well understood here. High JPY should also be a boon for us importers but we, too, are hit by lack of demand and the slowly deflating prices here. As it is, things are not exactly roses for any side and unfortunately there is no clear view as to what the future will bring. Nobody can count on "follow wind" so you have to hit the ball the whole distance to the green by yourself.

Once again, the politics makes things only worse. The flip flopping and all kind of kabuki play in the ruling DPJ camp has hit new sad records again after the July election loss. First, as expected, the knives were out in the Ozawa camp to get rid of PM Kan in the party president election and lift the "shadow shogun" himself to the seat that automatically would make him Japan PM - without any consideration that he is the most unliked politician in Japan for majority of voters because of his shady finances and might be even indicted soon in court for them. Neither did it matter that this would make for already third new PM during DPJ's short rule, much worse than LDP that it bitterly criticized at time. So much for the manifesto "listening to what people want"! In fact, it looked like the whole party will disintegrate despite being just voted in to rule Japan for four years. Then suddenly, ex PM Hatoyama, too, re-emerged on the scene to broker peace between the two fight cocks despite his solemn promise to stay away from the limelights in shame for his own money matters. What next?

As things stand at press time for this column, Kan continues to deny Ozawa a leader spot in running the party, Ozawa will press with his challenge for DPJ presidency and "ambassador" Hatoyama can go back to enjoy more cool mountain air at his Karuizawa villa. What's new is that rumours say many Ozawa-Hatoyama supporters will, after all, change to back Kan afraid of strong, negative reaction from the voters and Kan might be able to keep his PM job. Let's see what will be the final outcome - there's still two weeks to go for some new twist in the plot.

All through this dramatic spectacle, daily live in television, the opposition LDP must have been laughing watching the DPJ self distruct itself in front of the public and getting ready to deal the final "coup de grace" once the parliament convenes again if anything is left. Get ready for the new autumn season by your screen! It's every night on NHK at 7 pm and 9 pm.