Brrr.

As winter is fast approaching, I thought it time to illustrate the situation in which we find ourselves here.  Namely, that we do not have central heating and air-conditioning in our house.  I don't think it's popular here.  Neither is insulation---in general, Japanese houses are constructed in as flimsy a manner as possible so that when an earthquake hits and your house falls on you, you aren't squished flat.

Nor do we have a fireplace.  (I'm not sure if they have those here either, come to think of it....wouldn't want a chimney falling on anyone either....)   But never fear, we probably won't freeze because our house came with an astonishing variety of contraptions to heat it up.  I'm trying not to see this as an ominous sign.

We have five air cons (two downstairs, three upstairs) that are expensive to run but do a good job.  We used them this summer to cool the house (they blow hot or cool air to adjust the temperature) and on all but the hottest days they were able to keep up.  We do only keep them turned on when we are actually in a room which is slightly annoying to keep up with.....and still might put us in the poorhouse this winter.

air con: they also have handy remote controls

We have two oil, correction, gas heaters downstairs.  We had to get a lesson on how to use them, but so far we haven't tried them yet.  Apparently gas is a little pricey too.

oil heater

We have three kerosene heaters which terrify us.  They are very popular here because kerosene is cheap.  And they are supposedly very safe.  Sure.  We also got a lesson on them, but if I know us, we will have to lose a couple of toes to frostbite before we resort to them.  Also, they stink.

death trap kerosene heater
(I can practically see the flames licking up the wall)

We have three wheeled radiator-type doohickeys.  Supposedly they are good to use at night in the bedroom.

doohickey

And just in case that's not enough, we have three small under-the-desk type plug-in heaters. 

heater miscellany