So it has been a bit cold lately. Temperatures average between -2 and 2 Celsius (28-36 Fahrenheit). That's not too bad honestly (or I've just been here too long lol), but the main issue is the wind. I live near the ocean, like a 10-15min walk from it, so we get some ripping winds along the river valley where I live. The wind is often 40kmph/26mph with gusts faster than that. The wind howls against my house and wakes me up at night. It blows around my students' skirts and pushes me around when walking to and from work. I don't even try to drive my boxy kei car in such weather, let alone deal with the waves, but that's a story for another blog post.
Japanese houses generally don't have central air control and mine is no exception. My house is entirely heated and cooled by my AC unit and a kerosene heater (yes, a kerosene heater and yes it smells like kerosene). Also despite being built in 1995 my house has single pane glass in my three sliding glass doors and the other windows in my house. I literally got some bubble wrap to put over the windows and it honestly helps so much. Still need to get some foam tape for the cold air getting in under the door in my living room, but still way better than before. The temperature used to drop 2 degrees Celsius in about 10 minutes before. One time I left my heater off overnight and when I woke up in the morning I could see my breath in my house. Fun fact: in Japanese bubble wrap is called プチプチシート (puchi puchi sheet) after the sound it makes when you pop the bubble wrap. My coworkers taught me this fun fact XD.
The school isn't much better. We have huge kerosene heaters in the teacher's room, gym, and classrooms that get turned on when we are there but the hallways are freezing. They were 4.5C (40F) yesterday morning but I only got a picture of the hallways being 6C (43F). The main doors are often open when kids arrive and leave school as well as during lunch break as well so there is literally wind in the hallways at times too. Definitely a very cold wait for the lunch room to open where they actually heat the room thankfully.
And lastly, the non heated part of my house could literally be a refrigerator. At first I didn't understand why my house has so many doors but I've quickly learned it's because you can't heat the whole house so you pick some rooms to be habitable and let the rest become a refrigerator. In Hokkaido people actually use their entrances and hallways as extra refrigerator space because Japanese refrigerators are small and the hallway is a similar or lower temperature than a refrigerator anyway. I left the heat off while I was gone for winter break and came back to my olive oil solidified, which happens at 3C/37F. Thankfully it has returned to liquid with the help of my bubble wrapped windows and heating an adjacent room.
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