hot and cold

Some times I miss Japan more than others. Right now is one of those times.

It is autumn, and with the falling leaves comes colder weather. Although I do appreciate the briskness of an autumn day and sweater season, I am not really a cold weather person. My toes frequently go numb when the temperature drops below 50 degrees and I wear mittens as soon as I can smell the smoke from fireplaces.

Unfortunately, I am living with a man whose body loves the cold. Because of this, the windows in our house are mostly still open, despite the frost coming pretty regularly at night. Our heat has not kicked in (as the landlord promised), and yet Sam is in no hurry to find out why. He walks around in a short sleeved t-shirt. I resort to extra showers during the day in order to keep me warm and five blankets on my bed at night to keep me from dying of hypothermia.

This brings me back to Japan, a wonderful place where hot baths before you go to sleep are the norm, where heated carpets, heated floors, and heated blankets abound, and where even if you don't have central heating in your house, you can still go down the street to the local bath house and sit for hours in hot tubs and saunas for a very minimal price.