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Published: December 1st 2011
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I've been a bit lax of late in updating my blog, what with teacher conferences and lesson planning, so I will remedy this forthwith. I haven't, you'll be pleased to hear, been abducted by the mad Buddhist cult members I met last month. A call bar on my mobile seems to have done the trick so far. I don't think they know where I live...
Anyhow, the first snows have started to hit northern Nagano this week. I'm grateful I live in the southern part of the prefecture, where the snows come a little later. The last couple of weeks the temperature has started to plummet and next week I think it is set to fall below zero. My kitchen and bathroom are like a fridge in the mornings.
One of the elementary teachers was chatting to me last week about the weather. He said the worst months are January and February, when it can fall to -13.....I'm really not looking forward to that! I heat my house at the moment with my kerosene heater (I've got over the fear of using it and it doesn't smell too bad, just a little fumey, but the heat is worth it).
I also rely on my heated mat (which I like to curl up on and cat-nap after school), my heated blanket and my kotatsu. For those of you who have never seen or heard of a kotatsu, it is a low coffee table with a small electric heater on the underside. You add a heat proof duvet over the frame, put the top on and then nestle yourself under the duvet. It is very snug, but very hard to remove yourself from it on cold days....and easy to get dehydrated. The other problem is it only heats your legs, so the rest of your body gets cold if you don't have other heaters on in the room. Oh and of course I use my heated toilet seat with pleasure all the time now! I do, however, wonder why in a country that suffers such cold winters they don't have central heating - but I am thankful for the weird and wonderful array of heaters I own.
This weekend I plan on spending a few hours bubble wrapping my numerous floor length windows to try and keep in the heat. I have no curtains, only paper screens, which can be
pretty drafty, so bubble wrap is the way to go, even if it seems a bit of an odd thing to do. I will have to try and resist the urge to pop the bubbles during the long winter evenings!
I realised I'd left one thing off my list of favourite things in the last blog - namely service stations. Filling my car up with petrol has never been such a pleasure. At most service stations they have friendly staff on hand who will fill up for you. You just pull in and let them do the work. They are always really polite and helpful and best of all, while they fill up for you they clean your car. They'll pass you a cloth to clean the inside should you fancy giving your dashboard the once over. Hell, in a few places I've been to they've even given me a free gift of sweets or tissues. Then, to top it off, they will attempt to stop the traffic flow so you can easily leave the garage.....you can't beat the service they offer, it's second to none.
Next week my rental car goes off for a quick service and
they will change it over to snow tires. I'm not really sure what that involves or what they'll look like. It will be a relief to have them on though. Last week on one of the national holidays I decided to take a drive up one of the local mountains as the view at the top was recommended to me and I'd heard there was an onsen and restaurant too. On the spur of the moment I set off one afternoon, but it was a rather daft idea as the hour drive up a very long and windy road led me to a deserted area with everything closed for the winter. There was no view and the surrounding mountains were all shrouded in mist, and I panicked a bit when I thought I saw flakes of snow start! I think it was just rain though but it did mean I turned around pretty quick smart and started the long windy drive back about five minutes after reaching the top.
I went to a Thanksgiving party last weekend, attended by about a hundred other teachers from around Nagano. Everyone cooked at least one dish and the organisers produced six big
turkeys. There was so much lovely food - an amazing array of dishes, pumpkin pies, mash potato, vegetables, cakes - you name it, someone had cooked it. I ate so much I could hardly move and to top the evening off I won a huge jar of Jelly Belly beans in the raffle.I plan on offering it as a prize to my students with a Christmas competition.
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