Its Beginning to Still Look Nothing Like Chistmas

This seems so long ago!

Well, it is December 15th, and the reason I know its anywhere near close to Christmas is because I just received a package full of presents from my mom.  The weather outside is indeed frightful, but only compared to the semi-tropical hell that the Japanese call July and August.  It is also made a bit more frightful by the lack of central heating, but I'll get to that later.  The average temperature for the last week has been around 50 degrees or so.  The lack of snow is starting to damage my Minnesota sensibilities.  However, the one thing we aren't short of here is christmas music!  Pretty much every shop has been pumping in a steady stream of instrumental christmas music for the past two weeks.  Actually, the Pricecut Supermarket where I do most of my grocery shopping started playing Christmas tunes as soon as they took down the thanksgiving decorations!  Pricecut has yet to play a song with words though.  I didn't know there were so many instrumental versions of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in the world.  Tsu has also started putting up its city-wide Christmas decorations.  Route 23 (the main drag here in town) has been decked out in lights for two weeks now, and that at least mitigates the total lack of snow a little.  


Japan is great in many ways.  The people so far have been spectacular, with the notable exception of natto, the food is great, and it is a beautiful place with the ocean and the mountains.  However, there is one thing I don't understand.  Where in the world are the furnaces and the central heating systems??  It seems crazy that in a place that doesn't exactly have the year round beautiful weather of a place like hawaii they don't have central heating.  Or insulation.  Its crazy.  The only way John and I can heat our house is by using kerosene heaters.  I don't know if you have ever burnt kerosene in your house (I know everyone reading this in Japan has) but it doesn't exactly have the most pleasant smell.  It never really gets that cold here, but when your house is the same temperature as the outside, 55 degrees gets awfully chilly.  


One thing I do really like about winter here so far is that fact that it doesn't freeze at night.  This apparently leads people to plant all sorts of flowers!  So all the planter boxes in Tsu are filled with pansies and petunias!  It is really nice!  There are some gorgeous gardens in bloom along the road I run on.  It almost makes up for the cold apartment.  Also, a lot of fruit is coming in season.  Especially oranges.  I ran past a beautiful orange tree yesterday.  I was very very tempted to stop by and steal an orange, but my conscience eventually won out.  Unfortunately for my stomach.  


I have also been experiencing some pangs of homesickness, which isn't totally unexpected given that I will soon be spending Christmas away from home for the first time.  Don't worry too much about me though.  I have great friends here and we have lots of plans for the holidays.  Snowboarding in Nagano and Christmas parties galore.  So no worries family!  We'll be just fine over here!  Also, I am keeping my eye on the prize.  The prize of course being Sydney's visit on January 4th!  So, If I don't post again until after Christmas,  Happy Christmas and have a great New Year!!