Musings of a Drunken Monk: Individual Entry Archive

As many of you know from reading here before, the Japanese winter is particularly harsh on foreigners. Not because it's especially cold or anything; in actuality it's quite "warm" compared to the frigid temperatures of my native Massachusetts. The problem is that houses in the 関東 (kanto: the "central" area of Japan surrounding Tokyo) area are uninsulated and lack any form of heating.

This leads to the use of stinky (and poisonous!) kerosene space heaters and the like. It's not something I prefer to use whilst sleeping, so generally I just hunker down under a massive layer of blankets to sleep. On very cold nights I might use an electric heater but electricity is quite expensive even here in the "country" and I am loathe to waste it.

It presents a problem. One of my quirks is that I need fresh air to sleep. I can't, for example, sleep fully under blankets. If I could, I wouldn't have a problem, but as it stands I sleep with my face exposed to the cold air. My face is fine, but it's my (rather prominent) nose that causes discomfort. My nose gets extremely cold at night. I have compensated by trying to sleep like a mummy with only my nose sticking out, but of course ... my nose still gets cold!

I expressed my situation today to my coworkers. They all agreed it was because my nose is "so tall."