here comes february
Winter in Japan is really cold, and next month will be the worst. Don’t be fooled by the fact that it’s an island in the Pacific. Northern Hokkaido nearly touches Russia, and even the south gets snow.
A little snow, what am I whining about, right? Before you start saying I’m losing my Midwestern edge, let me clarify. There is no central heating in most Japanese buildings, including my apartment and all of my schools. Instead we use kerosene stoves and wear layers*, like the dark ages, and just wait out the season of suffering.
[*Except high school girls, who wear pleated skirts and knee socks all year round. They don’t roll those skirts up any less short in the winter either, not even when biking to school in the snow. These girls are hardcore. They are like tanks. They do not resemble their dainty flower-like elder counterparts who wear sunscreen and white driving gloves to protect their complexions and have matching shoes and purses. This transformation is a mystery to me.]
So we all sit here shivering and choking on fumes and meanwhile, there is a fuck-ton of snow this year, almost three METERS in a town just south of mine. It sure isn’t a mystery to me, why 20% of the school is home with the flu this week.
Personally, I’m not sick, just sore. I went snowboarding this weekend for the first time this season. I spent plenty of time on my ass but happily I didn’t have to start over from square one, it seems I remembered some of the painfully learned lessons from last year. Couple of nasty bruises starting though.
Now for a week of school.
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