Winter Tips

It's now May 15 and finally warm and nice. Its 75 or 23 degrees depending on you measurement and Samantha and I have every window open and are eating pineapple on the couch. That's right the weather is so nice we aren't using the kotatsu(heated table) we are sitting on the couch. This makes it seem like the perfect time for us to write our tips, tricks and realizations about surviving an Iwate winter.

1. Accept that you will be cold inside the house. Remember you're not aiming for warm, you're aiming for acceptable. And acceptable gets colder then you ever thought.

2. It's frozen. I don't need to know what it is to tell you it's frozen. Here is a partial list of frozen things: toothpaste, shampoo, milk, juice, cucumbers, wet laundry (the first time you take a block of laundry out and break it apart is a hard day), the floor of shower, drain of washer (meaning water is thrown up onto the floor), floor, pots left out to dry freezing to the counter, Samantha's wet hair.

3. Kerosene is a cruel mistress. Yes, if you use it your house will be nice and warm and your laundry will dry. However, if you use it too much you will die. Too much is over 3 hours. Also 5 minutes after you turn it off it's cold again.

4. Kotatsu is your friend. Kotatsu keeps you warm, but only you. This means that your clothes won't dry and every where else is cold. At least kotatsu wont kill you.

5. Reduce. Samantha and I have a 6 room house in summer. In winter we live in two rooms that are really one larger room partitioned off with sliding walls. We make brief expaditions to the other rooms like the toilet, shower and kitchen but that's it. Also, the warm room has to have every thing in it, you drying laundry, your bed, table, kotatsu, heater, tv, couch and things that need to stay warm (as in food that has been cooked already).

6. Bubble wrap. It's for more than packages home. In Japan people put it on the windows in winter. You spray the window with water and then stick the wrap to it. That means that you can't see outside but that's OK only snow is out there anyway.

7. Electric blanket. Its the third best thing for winter. You can warm the bed before you get in it. Like other forms of heat there is the risk that if left on all night it will burn the house down, but that's a risk you have to decide yourself.

8. Blankets are heavy. Samantha and I slept under, I kid you not, 12 inches of blankets. It was so heavy that you couldn't move around at all in you sleep and if you did and somehow exposed an arm to the cold, well you would know it fast.

9. Blankets are strange shapes here. Most of the blankets I have ever seen in Japan are too small to dangle off the bed. Meaning you have to put them on sideways making them too short so you need a lot. I think on a normal winter night we had 8 blankets.

10. Cheer up. There are things to do in winter like skiing and it wont last forever. If you let the winter ruin you life it will. Yes, winter is both the longest and worst time of the year in Ichinohe but it ends so just make it through. Do what you need to do to be happy and warm.

If you are reading this as an ALT being sent to Iwate don't be scared its not too bad. I mean its no reason to not come.