My first winter in Japan I learned to be careful what I wish for because I might get something else.

During my first year in Japan the weather didn’t cool down much until mid-October. I laughed that the students had to switch to winter uniforms even though it was still warm. Then it finally got cold and I finally decided to try out the space heater that came with my apartment.

This involved hooking up hoses to a main feed and figuring out where to turn on the feed and being careful not to trip over the hose that was snaked across the floor. I then twisted the nob on the toaster oven sized heater and there was a lot of clicking but not a lot of heat because it didn’t turn on. I tried several more times and even checked the hoses but it was clear the heater was broken.

I then biked down to the city office and explained, or at least tried to, that the heater didn’t work. (I’d only been in Japan a few months and my Japanese sucked.) My then supervisor drove me to a shop near the office and bought me a blanket set. I kept repeating that my heater didn’t work and he kept going “no problem. no problem.” which almost always means there’s a problem.

My supervisor took me back to my apartment along with another guy to do the heavy lifting and they helped me set up the blanket set under and around my coffee table. My coffee table was a large square and was actually a kotatsu or a heated table that was assembled like a sandwich. Fireproof carpet on floor; bottom frame of table (which included the heating element); fireproof blanket over frame; top of table on blanket. Since I was sitting on a floor chair, I would basically cocoon under the coffee table and slowly roast my legs and other, um, nether bits.

My living room was suddenly swallowed by a large blanket and none of it was what I’d asked for. I finally showed him the heater and said it didn’t work. He said something that indicated he thought I didn’t know how to work it (even though it had only one nob and only one way to turn it). He tried it. The guy with him tried it. They both checked the hoses. They checked to make sure gas was turned on to the apartment. The both tried to start it again and then finally declared the heater didn’t work.

A lot of this was language problem but some of it was “you can’t possibly have done this in your own country”. Granted, this was technically true as all the houses I’d lived in (except those in Albania) had little things like “insulation” and “central heating” and we are warned about using space heaters, especially in a room that was suddenly all blankets.

I finally got a working heater, and a nice one at that, but for the rest of the winter, in fact for every winter, as I roasted under the kotatsu, I couldn’t help but wonder why Japan didn’t insulate and heat its houses as well as it did its coffee tables.

Yesterday’s post about skiing was running long, so I decided to split it into two parts.

In yesterday’s post I mentioned my adventures during my first time skiing in Japan. I also mentioned that I eventually got much better and then got injured. Along the way to that there were a couple adventures worth mentioning.

First, I was invited to join a group fellow JET Programme members at a camp where we planned to do some cross country skiing. We were going to be tutored by an expert Japanese skier who happened to be friends with one of my friends.

The adventure started, as Japanese adventures are wont to do, with a speech by the man–let’s call him Mr. Ski. It was more or less a history of cross country skiing and a lesson in the physics of cross country skis. The only bit I remember was that there were two kinds of cross country skis: the kind with ridges and the smooth kind for racing and hurting yourself badly.

The next day we were issued skis and started skiing. Right away I had trouble going up even a mild slope. I’d gone cross country skiing a lot when I lived in Hayden and even though I was terrible at it, I knew I was better than that. Mr. Ski kept chastising me for walking on the sides of my skis and falling behind.

The only funny bit about that was I was carrying a backpack with a camera and some water and when I took the pack off to check my skis, the heat and sweat that had built up under the pack met cold air and I started steaming so much it apparently looked like my back was on fire.

It turned out I had racing skis, which have no tread at all on the bottom and were designed for the skating motion, not the running motion. I was immediately issued a new pair of skis and an apology from Mr. Ski. Luckily, I didn’t get hurt that day.

A couple years later, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, the local ski resort opened and managed to recruit a Canadian professional to serve as instructor for one year. He got stuck living at the ski resort and I provided occasional escapes and chances to eat real food and get naked.

In exchange for those chances to escape, he offered me free powder and mogul lessons when I had time to go skiing and he didn’t have any paid lessons. I learned a lot from him and he’s another one of those Temporary Friends Forever.

Then, I moved to Tokyo and got married and had a daughter and just a fortnight before my oldest’s first birthday, I went skiing at the local ski resort in Nou-Machi and experienced one of those moments when lack of skill met lack of brains met temporary panic met bad decision making. I ended up with a sprained knee and a trip to the hospital. (I did get to ride down the mountain in the little ambulance sled which was kind of cool.)

Since then my limp has gotten worse and my double set of bad knees has hindered my karate skills and weakened one of my calves to the point I’ll probably need a hiatus from karate.

But I still go skiing almost every year. I’m stupid that way.

My skiing experience in Japan started badly well before I even started skiing.

Sometime after I arrived in Nou-machi, it was pointed out that the town would be getting a small ski resort and I mentioned that I’d been skiing a few times and liked skiing although I wasn’t very good.

Keep in mind that although I grew up on the Western slope of Colorado, I only went skiing twice in nine years. In fact, I’d been cross-country skiing more (as that was taught in junior high and high school) than downhill skiing and I’d skied more in Colorado after I moved back to Kansas than I had when I lived in Colorado. I also, at the time, hadn’t been skiing since, maybe, the early George H. W. Bush administration.

The office staff apparently took my “No, really, I suck at skiing” as false modesty and acquired for me (although I paid for it) a set of very long racing skis that were way beyond anything I’d ever tried to ski with before (200 centimeters if you’re curious). I decided to go for it and use those skis. After all, once you’ve learned to ski, going skiing again is just like falling off a bicycle. (Or something like that.)

For our first outing, I joined the office staff for an annual excursion to Nagano Prefecture where construction was well underway for the 1998 Olympics. As I suited up and got my airplane wings attached to my feet, I was surprised that I was expected to join a rigorous warm up of stretches and calisthenics. I joined but was tired by the end of it. After that, I got on the lift with one of my bosses and one of the women in the city office. I noticed the chair was lower than I was used to when I sat down with a large smack that shook the entire lift.

Then, at the top, I got ready to stand up and, well, things fell apart. In the USA, at least in Colorado, you stand up a the top of a ramp. This helps you stand up and helps get you away from the lift if anything goes awry. In Japan the stand up line is on a flat section and you’re expected to stand up and skate ahead of the chair. I went to stand up and things went awry. The low lift chair had me in a funny position. The knee I injured whilst acting rebelled and I couldn’t stand up. I ended up on my side in soft snow which made it difficult for me to get up.

For reasons I still don’t understand, although a perverted notion of “saving my face” may have been involved (helping me would have been insulting to me) no one helped me get up. Finally after five minutes of struggle, free lessons in “colorful” English, damning the Japanese to Hell and beyond and having one asshole ski over my pole and bend it slightly, I managed to stand up.

That’s when the lessons began. The Japanese tend to prefer a skiing style that involves moving your uphill foot into parallel as you complete a turn. For me this was mostly a way to confuse me and make me catch my up hill foot on something and cause me to fall down.

Every time I tried to get even a crappy snow plow going just to get my “ski legs” back under me, I had a boss telling me “You suck”. Now, if you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know that I soon tire of being the center of attention, especially if I feel I’m holding a large group back. I kept telling everyone to just go off and ski and leave me to find a place where I could get a ramen and a beer. Er, I mean “leave me to practice by myself.”

Eventually I’d get my “ski legs” back and would start skiing a lot more and actually get pretty good. Then I’d sprain my knee. But that’s another post.

As a rule, when I tell people I like to travel, I mean that I like BEING places. What I don’t like is GETTING places, even if it’s only a relatively short trip and even if I’m not doing the driving.

We returned from the in-laws today which meant we had to make a foray onto the Japanese train system. Even at its worst, the system is better than Amtrack, but we had the unfortunate experience of traveling during a phenomenon called “the U-turn Rush”.

The “U-Turn Rush” happens a few times of year at the end of major holidays. All the people who went on holiday, are now going back home. The expressways back up for 24 miles (42ish kilometers) and the trains can reach 200% capacity. Each time this happens, the Japanese press covers the rush as if it’s some kind of news. They send reporters to clogged train platforms and encourage tired travelers to tell their tales of woe. The interviews usually go like this:

Reporter–It was very crowded in the train, I think.
Traveler–Yes, it was very crowded.
Reporter–(to studio) As you can see, it was very crowded in the train.

The truth is, the only newsworthy thing would be if the trains WEREN’T crowded during a U-Turn Rush because that would mean no one had traveled.

What typically happens is Japan Rail sells as many tickets as it can. The reserved seats go quickly and then there’s a Battle Royale for the non-reserved seats. After those are gone, all remaining space in the train serves as standing room only space. I’ve personally been stuck in the little passage between train cars along with several dozen people. Non-reserved ticket holders will even stand in the aisles in the reserved seat cars.

In our case, we managed to get reserved seats on the shinkansen/bullet trains, but our second leg was on a notoriously crowded line. We couldn’t get reserved seats and instead we opted for a much slower local train. The problem with this train is that we end up sitting facing each other, which means my knees start to sing the blues. This train also fills up, but at least features a projection mapping show of sorts during the long series of tunnels on the route.

Even if I have a reserved seat on a train, the seats are not designed for people as tall as I am. Although they have more space between seats, the seats are narrow and a little low. My knees wait a while and then start in on the second verse.

When we finally get home we are drained, even though the trip has only been four hours or so. One of us volunteers to make coffee whilst the other falls asleep on the couch. Luckily, this time, I got to fall asleep.