Before I moved I told everyone that Japanese winter would be nothing to me. I grew up with proper winters. Minus twenty, snow up to the windows, the whole thing. I was very confident and very wrong.
The temperature is genuinely milder where I live. That part I had right. What I did not account for is that houses here are built differently. Back home the cold stays outside and the inside is one consistent warm temperature. Here the cold comes in with you. My first winter I was colder indoors than I had ever been in my life, wearing a coat in my own living room.
Things that fixed it, roughly in order of how much they helped:
A decent heated table. I resisted for a whole season because it seemed like a novelty. It is not a novelty. It is the single best piece of furniture I have ever owned and I am not exaggerating.
Insulating film on the windows. Cheap, ugly, works.
A rug. My floor was the main source of cold and I had not even considered it.
Dressing in layers indoors instead of trying to heat the whole apartment. This felt like giving up at first and now it just seems obvious.
The other thing I got wrong was assuming snow country here would feel familiar. I went up north for a trip and the snow volume was genuinely more than I grew up with. Different kind of snow too, wetter and heavier. Shovelling it is a completely different workout.
What I miss is not the weather, it is how winter is handled. Back home the entire infrastructure is built around it. Here it varies enormously by region, and if you are somewhere that gets cold but not snowy, you are a bit on your own.
Anyone else from a cold country who got humbled by their first winter here? Curious whether people further north had the same experience or whether it is just the middle of the country that catches you out.
#japan#winter#canadians
