Beating the cold in Japan 🥶

October 28, 2023

寒くなってきましたね。
It's starting to get cold, huh?

In Fukuoka, the weather is starting to drop to around 11~14C (51~57F) at night, and now I need to use two blankets instead of just the one I've been using all summer.

I love Fall so it's okay, but I definitely don't miss my extremities being cold

If the above Japanese confused you at all, especially why we were adding きました at the end, I have a handful of lessons for you to check out:

Different ways to use Vてくる

 Using Vてくる and Vていく (1)

Using Vてくる and Vていく (2)

Feel free to take a look at them now or just keep hitting this button and they'll make sense in time ^^

If you don't have an account yet, you can make yours for free here:

Note that you'll be able to view those lessons if you have an active free trial, even if you haven't caught up to that content yet!

Anyway, all this cold weather has got me thinking:

こたつほしい。
I want a kotatsu.

In case you aren't familiar with what a kotatsu is, think:

"heaven, but in the form of a table."

In other words, they're a low table with an electric heater underneath and a blanket that skirts the edges of the table to keep all that heat in.

Apparently, these were invented in the 室町むろまち時代じだい (Muromachi Period) which spanned from 1338 to 1573, and original こたつ used hot coals from fires for the heat source.

That doesn't sound dangerous at all.

Anyway, once you sit under one… there is no escape.

My dream is to one day get one so I can complete my morning studies happy and warm.

Avoiding the cold in Japan

Besides the unpractical-for-most-people answer of "just move to 九州きゅうしゅう (Kyushu)," let's talk about a bunch of ways to avoid the cold in Japan.

Thankfully many of these you can also utilize as a tourist, so be sure to note it down for your next Japan trip 👀

Besides the こたつ, there's also…

カイロ (hand warmer)

These are little pocket-sized packs that emit heat.

Here are two types that I have at my house right now:

In the fine print, you can see the average temp of these is around 52C (125F), which is pretty toasty. They work best if you keep them in your pockets or around something that can help hold the heat.

If you leave one out though it'll probably start to get cold. You should notice the heat come back if you put it back in your pocket (and it's still within the timeframe where it works).

Also note that there's one that says はる (to stick [stickable]) and one that says 貼はらないタイプ (un-stickable type).

You can はる them to your undershirt or such and they provide constant warmth to you during outdoor activities, such as visiting the クリスマスマーケット (Christmas Market) next month in Fukuoka! (Is it too early to be mentioning Christmas? lol)

Just be careful to not stick it directly to your skin or you might get a 低温ていおんやけど (low-temperature burn).

Or you can go with the 貼はらないタイプ which seems to be more popular because you can keep them in your pocket and swap around depending on what part of your body is cold. Or give it to your friend and be everyone's favorite friend for the day.

They can be found at the コンビニ (convenience store) or any ドラッグストア (drug store).

In a similar vein to this is…

湯ゆたんぽ (hot water bottle)

These are a bit bigger and more meant for the house, but they're good because they're reusable, unlike the カイロ.

It's basically just a pouch full of water that you heat up, usually via plugging it into an outlet, though there are ones that you actually pour hot water into as well. (Be careful about burning yourself!)

These are 10/10 when you're home without a こたつ and to be honest, it might make a good souvenir or gift to bring back, though I can't see it being practical to use while you're traveling.

I'm pretty sure I've seen these at ドン・キホーテ (Don Quixote) and on Amazon.jp, though you can definitely find them elsewhere as well.

Probably electronic stores like ビックカメラ (Bic Camera) and ヨドバシカメラ (Yodobashi) would have them too.

They might just have these where you're from too, but I learned about them after I moved to Japan haha.

Speed run

I've already rambled too much so here are a bunch of extra ways you can quickly warm yourself up in Japan:

コンビニ
Go pick up おでん (a type of hot soup), なべ (hotpot), or lots of different types of hot drinks and such. You can also buy カイロ, gloves, warm hats, etc. here as well.

自販機じはんき (vending machines)
These are always full of hot drinks such as お茶ちゃ (tea), ココア (hot cocoa), and weird drinks that are fun to try with flavors like ゆず (yuzu) and はちみつ (honey).

Wear a mask
Really. When COVID started calming down and I had an exposed face last winter, I was so much colder.

Search for a heated toilet seat (Only half joking lol)
Definitely not my go-to option, butt... to each their own. Thankfully they're basically everywhere.

Take a bus or train
The heaters on buses are actually so intense you'll be melting before you get off. Which is nice if you need to get somewhere far away. Trains can also be pretty warm as well, but there's nothing quite like nearly burning yourself on the bus heater. Vibes.

Walk underground paths
Bigger cities often have paths where you can go through a large portion of the city completely underground.

Fukuoka has one which is called 天神てんじん地下街ちかがい (Tenjin Underground Mall) and is kind of like a long underground shopping mall that leads to a bunch of different places. It's much warmer down there.

Niko and Chie have talked about 地下街ちかがい on the Not-so Laid-back Japanese Podcast as well, which you can check out here.

Drop by a カフェ (cafe)
It's nice to take a break and drink some hot coffee or tea on your adventures as well~

I also asked my friends and they said ヒートテック (Heat Tech) from ユニクロ (Uniqlo) and a warm jacket does the trick.

Stay warm!

Weekly writing prompt:

While staying in Japan, your Japanese friend invites you to a concert with a band they're into. You want to know a little more before deciding whether to go, so you ask...

This prompt was written by Kasper in the NativShark community, thank you Kasper!

Post your responses here and let's talk about them!

Feel free to ask for help if you want to say something specific as well. Both myself and other learners will be in there offering advice and help~

Submit prompts you want to see here.

Great job from everyone on last week's prompt^^

We took a look at asking someone to repeat themselves when you didn't hear them at the conbini— something I've experienced countless times before I figured out how to get them to repeat themselves like I wanted them to.

We saw lots of great responses in there, and I'd like to share the one I personally use the most:

すみません、聞きこえなかったです。
Sorry, I didn't catch[hear] that.

I've tried other things like もう一度いちどお願ねがいします (one more time please) and もう一回いっかいお願ねがいします (one more time please) before but they didn't always give me the results I wanted.

I would often get a completely different sentence back (which I also didn't understand) instead of the exact same sentence that I missed. Sometimes it would confuse the person I was speaking to, even.

Perhaps that's because they can mean so many things in different contexts?

Anyway, give the sentence I suggested a shot! It's good to lean your ear towards them a bit as well.

Also… practice it a few times and try to keep it in mind before you have an interaction if you aren't feeling confident. If you're anything like me, your mind might go blank when you miss something if you're not prepared

回分かいぶん (palindromes)

This is a fun one^^

A 回分 is a word or phrase that is the same when said backward, so thinking about our こたつ above…

Hehe. Go check out the lesson here to listen to the audio and see other examples of 回分かいぶん!

If the above Japanese is difficult for you, all you need to do is keep hitting the Study Now button, and you'll understand it when you get there. Especially when using a study resource like NativShark, you'll be fine as long as you show up as much as you can. The above comes from a lesson in Phase Three, Unit 89.

NativShark goodie bag

あっ！野生やせいの4 new Unitsが　飛とびだしてきた！
Ah! A wild 4 new Units have appeared!

New Phase Three Units

Unit 128

Contains the lesson:
忍者: Ninjas ← Been waiting a while for this one 👀

New Podcasts Episodes:

The Konnichiwa Podcast

Boonsacky - Spotify

Thanks for reading and happy studies~
Ty & the NativShark team