HOME & GARDEN IMPROVEMENT

Looking at Japan when I first came, I know that winter will be a challenge. The snow fell and the wind howled. I expect the bitter cold outside, but not in the room. Looking for central heating in the house, I find the central heating system consists of the position of kerosene stove in the middle of the room. The kerosene heater fumes error, so dull headache. Open a window to 30 minutes for the winter and open bite will remove smoke temperature will decrease. I will still cold and my head still hurts. Because of the high prices combined with the stench of evil, I do not buy kerosene for heating my first apartment. Houses and apartments are rare in Japan with heating my small apartment is no exception.

kotatsu was only one answer. My first kotatsu have a small square table top is brown plastic somewhere between two and three feet. The top of the table at the bottom of the table with four legs that short fat around the lower half as big as my knee. kotatsu comes with a blanket that is placed between the top of the table and base table, including the kotatsu, go to the floor, and even across the floor a bit.

Light blue blanket has a small red car on the road, but it does not fit with reddish brown table. Both are still cheap. The captured heat from thermal blanket under a table lamp base. Did not know better, I do not have a notebook under kotatsu both heat retention and protection of the tatami, woven straw mats on the floor in some rooms and houses in Japan.

During my first winter in Japan, I remember sitting in my kotatsu on the pillow, my back against the wall to rest and stay warm with only a small stove kotatsu and electricity in small, one-bedroom apartment, while the snow fell and the wind was blowing. My feet are warm grilled kotatsu below. My upper body was warm when it reaches the combustion chamber.

When I was little, I used to build caves in my room in the winter. I throw an old blanket over a couple of chairs and into the crowd, imagine a bear in winter in centrally heated my cave. To combat the biting cold, I thought, I bring the lamp for warmth. The cave was perfect until I burned myself on the bulb. I never burn themselves under kotatsu me, but I can not uncomfortably warm. My new world in Japan, like my childhood, but without central heating.

kotatsu heated coal date back hundreds of years in Japan, but today almost everyone uses electricity kotatsu. Both types kotatsu is kotatsu I have just described and horigotatsu, that’s just a kotatsu more than a hole in the floor lasted. You’re in horigotatsu and paste your feet into the hole. I remember going to a soba restaurant in the countryside. Restaurants with high ceilings and beams, looks like it was more than one hundred years ago built. Each table has a large private horigotatsu. Food is there in the summer, I can only imagine how cold the huge space in the winter when people enjoy the warmth of the ground.

When it was first used kotatsu hundred years ago, people were all dressed in Japanese garb. Will heat the bottom of the mantle, rose body, the earth, and let the cape in the neck, warming the whole body. I have winter in Western clothes and all my body is warm water.

If you are still no clear picture of what kotatsu, google and you can find photos. Visit Metafilter Ask, and you can even find instructions on how to build one. Kotatsu are great, but winter in Japan is a cool and comfortable business. Due to the extremely high prices for electricity, insufficient insulation, and building codes and laws which do not require heat, people switch to these devices kotatsu. Reiko-san is my friend kotatsu, blankets, heating pad that she places under her feet on his desk. These are just some of the many devices in Japan that people use to combat the cold.