Samui ne?

Clear skies last night and the temperature soon started to drop as the sun went down. It looks like more of the same this evening too. So the cold nights of winter have arrived at last. Not too cold by the standards even of places in northern Honshu and Hokkaido, but chilly nevertheless, a few degrees over freezing. And there's a big contrast with the warm sunny daytimes - as soon as it gets dark kerosene heaters and electric fires get turned on fast. Samui ne? - Cold innit?

It might suprise many European and American readers that it can get so chilly this far south but the Pacific currents around here flow down from the Aleutians so we don't get the boost from the ocean that the Gulf Stream gives the much more northern English climate. I often feel a lot colder here in winter than I do in Britain but the reason isn't so much the outdoor temperature as the construction of houses and the lack of central heating.

They say Japanese houses are designed and built to avoid the summer heat - and it's true - but actually the problem in winter is more that they are built cheaply. Brick isn't practical because of the frequent earthquakes so family houses are built with timber frames and plywood interior and exterior skins. In effect they are thin wooden boxes with no insulation at all- except the wallpaper. So they quickly lose the heat of the day and the value of any internal heating that is turned on. Central heating hasn't caught on in Japan either - again presumably because of the earthquake risk to piping. So we rely on room heaters out here in leafy Chiba-ken.

One traditional and effective way to keep warm is to take a really deep hot bath in the ofuro before going to bed and it works too. Once you've soaked for fifteen minutes your hands and feet stay warm under the duvet all night, even if your breath is turning to ice. But of course the problem with this strategy is actually getting out of those layers of clothes and into the water fast enough in the arctic room temperatures.