Staying Warm

This past Saturday, Adam and I were invited to a Christmas dinner with the other Canadians we know in the area.  We had a lovely time eating ham, mashed potatoes, and apple pie.  We contributed some homemade bread rolls, banana chocolate cake, and cookies to the dinner.

On Sunday, we woke up to more snow!  We decided that it could be dangerous (and difficult) biking to church so we took the train.  However, on the way home, we decided to walk.  It only took about 1 hour and 45 minutes to go from Ogaki church to our home.  Seeing as in Canada we always like to go for walks on Sunday, this was a great way to admire the snow and enjoy the early afternoon.  I think one of my favourite "pictures" was seeing an orange tree with ripe oranges and all it's leaves still on with snow all around.  Today, we woke up to snow and it's been snowing all day.

Here are some pictures of the snow.

Sunrise outside our window this morning.

Outside out front step

They have these mirrors at most intersections to help people see who's coming
with all the blind corners.

Orange tree in someone's yard.

There's still flowers on trees.

I think this is a temple- it's close to our house.

So you may be asking yourself how do you stay warm without central heating?  Do you just eat soup and drink tea all day?  While we certainly do drink our fair share of tea and eat soup, we have other ways of heating our house. First off let me say that I think Japanese people are tougher than Canadians in terms of the cold.  In Canada, we have it good.  We get into a warm car and then into a warm building and you really don't have to spend that much time outside.  In Japan, if you go out, you turn off all the heat so when you come home it's the same temperature inside as outside and the houses aren't well insulated.  At our adult English class this past week, we were talking about the weather.  Two ladies asked me if I had ever gotten frostbite.  I talked about how in Canada winters are very cold, so when you're outside you can get frostbite and you have to be careful.  Well, I was sure surprised when they shared with me about how they get frostbite on their toes in their homes!  One lady said, "Because my home is so old and it's so windy even with the windows closed the curtains blow."  

Our home is really drafty, but probably not as bad as hers.  We got our old kerosene heater up and running which heats up our whole house pretty quickly.  I guess people who lived in our house in the past didn't use it because it lets off CO.  We just got ourselves a CO detector, and crack the window open every once and a while.  Since our home is older and drafty, I don't think we have to worry too much about it even with the windows closed.  We also have two air conditioners that have heat settings.  These take much longer than the kerosene heater to warm up and are pretty expensive.  Then, we have the kotatsu which is a low table with a heater underneath that you cover with a heavy blanket (or in our case a heavy rug, I found in the closet).  Finally, we have a heated toilet seat.  I was never a big fan of heated toilet seats, but in the middle of the night when your house gets really cold and you got to go, it's really nice to have.  :)

Now, I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas.  Adam and I will be leaving on our trip to Ishigaki next week, so my next post will be all about that trip.

Sushi Restaurant and Much Much More

Welcome back to Janelle's blog.  On today's blog, we (well mostly just your host, Janelle) will be discussing three topics: a Sushi Restaurant, "How old are you?," and being part of a visible minority.

Sushi Restaurant
This past Saturday, Adam and I woke up to snow!  It all melted that day, but it was really beautiful to see it on the mountains.  We also had our first experience going to a sushi restaurant.  I haven't eaten enough sushi in Canada to know if it's similar, so I'll write about the experience anyways.  We went with a guy we met at the Tarui pia festival.  He's Japanese, but grew up in the U.S.A..  On entering the sushi restaurant there's a screen in English where you can select how many people are in your party.  The host gives you a number and that's the table number that you go to.  At the table is a touch screen that has an English option (yay!).  You order your food by going through the menu on the screen and selecting what you want.  There's a conveyor belt that passes by all the tables.  There's sushi on there that anyone can just take without ordering it.  When you order sushi, it comes on a little bowl like plate on the conveyor belt (so you know not to take other people's ordered food).  When it arrives by your table your screen makes a sound to alert you that your food is there.  The plates are about 100 yen each (about $1) and there's two pieces of sushi on them.  When you're done your meal, you press a button on the screen and a waitress comes and counts up how many plates you have and then gives you your bill.  I liked this since it didn't involve having many difficult Japanese conversations and we knew what we were ordering.  I really liked the sushi we had too.


How old are you?
I went through my blog to see if I'd already written about this, but I don't think I have.

When Japanese people meet for the first time or are introducing themselves it's common for them to ask, "How old are you?" Or to just go ahead and tell you how old they are.  When Adam and I first arrived here many people asked us our ages, including the mayor!  It's a good thing that we're fine with telling people.  At the Suitopia centre, where we took Japanese classes, our instructors would give a mini self-introduction at the beginning of class which usually included something like: "I'm Sarah, I'm 31 years old."  I'm not sure why in Canada asking someone's age is so rude.  What's the big deal after all?  I can understand in some work situations that you might not want people to know your age if you're young so that you're taken seriously.  From what I understand about Japan is that you always have to ask an older person for "permission" before making decisions in a company.  Maybe that's why they want to know your age.

Being Part of a Visible Minority
It's interesting for me to experience being part of a visible minority.  You know how on different forms one question will often be, "Are you part of a visible minority?"  I always checked "no."  So now, it's interesting to experience being so visibly different.  I can understand why sometimes people stare.  I've started to stare at foreigners too because it's surprising to see them.  I've never really noticed people's race before- maybe because in Canada you really do get a mix of everything, maybe it's a gift, or maybe it's because I'm a fairly unobservant person.  But now, everything has changed!  I see a "white" person and my eyes get stuck as I wonder, "Does s/he speak English?"  Often, s/he is looking back at me in surprise.  I wonder how going back to Canada will be with this "foreigner" radar and being able to communicate easily.

Thanks for joining me again on Janelle's blog.  Stay tuned next week for news on a Christmas party.

Nagoya Science Centre

This past Saturday we went to Nagoya.  Adam will have to work Saturdays from now until the end of January so it was our last free weekend for a while.  Unfortunately, it was a rainy day so we decided to do some indoor activities in Nagoya.

Nagoya's train station is pretty big, so of course we went out the wrong exit at first and had to back track to the other side of the station.  The walk to the Science Museum was a wet one.  When we arrived at the museum, we were met with a beautiful park.  There was a big fountain and this guy doing a choreographed dance by himself- yup random stuff in Nagoya.

The Park by the Science Museum

The giant "ball" has the planetarium inside.

On entering the Science Museum, we were given the option of three different types of tickets.  We ended up choosing the one with the planetarium.  The planetarium is the largest dome shaped "screen" in the world.  We went to the first show available in the planetarium.  We were told that it was only in Japanese and were asked if that was OK. We assumed that it would be a giant Imax type movie, so we thought it would be fine.  In the end, after 50 minutes of sitting in the dark with the night sky above us and a guy using a mouse to explain what constellations were where with some Greek mythology (all in Japanese), the show was over.  I think this experience would have been interesting if we understood Japanese.  It was kind of cool to be in a "simulated" cloud free starry night, but I was hoping to have that feeling of moving while actually being still like in Imax theatres.

After that we had our lunch and then checked out the rest of the centre.  They have this -30 C room with a simulated aurora that you can go into (you need a special ticket and to line up).  We figured that we get that in Canada and we don't have to line up for it, so we didn't go.  The centre is really big and well worth the 400 yen to see the place.

I think the coolest exhibit for me was this table with all these tiny little balls that moved according to the pitch of sound.  You could move this wand back and forth to make the pitch higher or lower.  The little balls would vibrate depending on the pitch and actually looked like real sound waves.

Here are some videos and pictures from the Science Museum:

This was a simulated tornado.

Having fun with some mirrors.

Where did your body go?

The human body exhibit.

We could see a star with this telescope.

 The sun came out as we were finishing up the science museum.  Outside there were a couple groups doing choreographed hip hop dances in front of the fountain along with a drama club or something going on.

The sun came out!

 We walked to the Sakae shopping district and I felt a little like I was back in Europe.  There's all these shops, people walking, and it's decorated for Christmas.

Sakae shopping district

Sunday, we rode our bikes for the second time to church and set up our house for Christmas.  This involves a 3 foot Christmas tree, Advent wreath, and Nativity scene.  I like looking at the Nativity scene (without baby Jesus in it yet) and reflecting on waiting with Mary and Joseph for Jesus to come and save us

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