2025/01/11 [Sat]
Hi Y’all, how frozen are you today? Jorge here, noticing that it is finally winter. Of course, all my friends still in Hokkaido have been posting pics of snow, which has been falling since early November! Crazy right? I can’t believe I used to live up there. A Winter Wonderland really, until you start driving. Then it’s suuuper scary if you don’t have a big car. But even then, I saw maaaaany big cars, usually like Station Wagons and Minivans, turned over on the side of the road after slipping on the ice and spinning out. Suuuper scary to look at, especially when you see that happen in real-time. Happy nothing that badly ever happened to me, but I decided to leave before something like that happened to me.
Anyways, friends that are in Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokushima have been posting pictures on SNS that it snowed recently. The last two days have had snowfall. Heavy enough for it to gather and not melt immediately. The scenery looks really nice and it makes me happy to see those pictures. But mannnnn do I bet no one has snow tires on huh. Must be kinda scary.
A few times when I was in Tokushima, it would snow, not a lot, but enough for it to be on the roads for a bit in the mornings. I would always drive to work slowly and carefully. Especially when making turns, since sometimes I would slide a little bit. I would always drive using all-season tires, just in case. Since it would at least help a little bit compared to having only summer tires. It helped me out a couple of times I’m sure. Since I do have memory of sliding a little bit when on my commute to work, especially at the bottom of the mountain, since the snow would be melting by that time in the morning. So it most likely was more icy and not as snowy.
Even here in Gunma, the weather has dropped into the negatives finally. While I do say finally, it’s not like I was waiting for this or excited about it. I just assumed that at some point it would be cold enough to drop into the negatives. At least that was what the projections said when I looked up the weather before moving here.
Summer will be super hot, is what the projections are telling me. Up to the 40s supposedly. Isn’t that super hot? People are going to be melting left and right. When I visited Tokyo last year, I would walk outside for 10 minutes and start to melt already. Yet somehow people are still dressed to the nines with their fashionable outfits and don’t look like they’re sweating at all! How about you? Are you used to the heat?
I thought I was, since I was living in Miami. But we all have super strong AC units in our cars and in all buildings. So I am always shocked when I go to a house in Japan that only has one AC unit. Maybe in the countryside, where you can open your window and let the breeze in and circulate the air, it’s not that bad. I say maybe because my house didn’t have a window to open, just my balcony. And if I ever opened that door, bugs would attack my house. I didn’t like that so I never opened the balcony sliding door. Even with the bug screen blocking, somehow they would wiggle their way through. Powerful and annoying little buggers.
Hokkaido was a bit similar, even with the bug screen closed. Those pesky stinky bugs somehow managed to crawl their way into my room. Once even a HUGE wasp came in. I literally have no idea how, but I managed not to die or panic at the very least.
But back to winter talk, this morning I saw frost on some windows of the cars near mine. But mine was totally fine. Kind of strange, not sure how that happened. But even if my windows were a little bit frosted over, I was my trusty scraper in my car. I had to buy one of those to help me remove snow from my car back in Hokkaido. Totally a must-have if you live in a place that snows a lot. But since it doesn’t really snow much in Gunma, maybe it’s a waste to have in my car. But it would be an even bigger waste to just throw it away. I will keep it in my car for the one or two times a year I might use it, or until it ends up breaking. Then I will feel more okay to throw it away.
What would you do? If you don’t need it any more, would you throw it away? Would you give it away? Try to sell it? Or keep it with you like I am doing?
This morning when I woke up, it was -4 Celsius, but currently it’s 8 Celsius outside. Pretty big change in temperature. Praise the sun for its warmth. Fortunately, today is a super clear day with hardly any clouds out in the sky. If it was cloudy, I’m sure it wouldn’t be as warm today.
Today is looking up to be a very nice Saturday. Hopefully, Sunday is just as nice. Enjoy your weekend! Do you have any plans for this weekend? It’s probably going to be a lovely weekend. So if you have the chance, you should go out and enjoy the sun’s rays. Today seems like a great day to go out for a drive if you are in Gunma. How’s the weather where you are? To my friends in Tokushima, it sure seems like this weekend will be a lovely one as well.
