Thursday, November 20, 2014

I'm Cold

Yep, I understand the ominous foreboding from everyone regarding the oncoming cold. The cold is no longer oncoming; it is here. And it sucks.



In complete and total honesty, it isn’t that cold outside. It climbs up to about 50 degrees during the sunny part of the day, and then dips to 30 or 40 at night. It could be a lot worse. The challenging part is the lack of heating in Japanese buildings.



At school, warmth and colour are constantly absent from my hands. The same goes for my face, always void of colour. I have to drink coffee or tea at all times to ward off shivering fits making me look like a living maraca. Sometimes I do dishes in the kitchen just to enjoy the feeling of warm water cascading over my skin.


The major head scratcher for me is that the school always leaves the windows open. I really can’t for the life of me understand the reasoning behind this action. Because of this, at times it is warmer outside than in.



I would have abandoned the gym entirely if not for the promise of five hot tubs and a sauna awaiting me there after my workout. The internal heat generated by the workouts alone is motivation enough to keep moving by any means necessary. I ride my bike about ten times faster now just to stay warm.



I honestly can’t figure it out, though. Even when it isn’t that cold outside, it feels like it is a Siberian, frozen wasteland to me. I wear the same hat, scarf, gloves and boots as I do in Colorado, but somehow they seem a powerless defense against the frigid air here. Maybe the Japanese wind and air have a mystical ability to render American winter wear useless. That is the only logical answer, really.

2 comments:

  1. Aha! I remember saying you always survived winter with just that coat....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, random blog commenter whom I don't know: it was always fine, but Japan is a different story...

      Delete

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