Winter is Just Around the Corner

Within the past week it's become noticeably colder rather quickly. Monday I woke up to find the mountains snow-capped. While it had only rained where I lived, the difference due to altitude must have been large enough that there was snow up there. Even the smaller mountains closer to my school were fairly covered which depressed me a little. Fortunately, by the afternoon the sun had melted all the snow except for some on the peaks of the taller (1000m+) mountains off in the distance. So while it's not quite winter yet, it's clearly just around the corner.

Winter in Shiga is generally warmer than in Toronto, but it feels much colder. This is because all houses in Japan are built without insulation or central heating (although some newer houses now have one, the other, or both). Apartments like mine are also generally made with a large amount of concrete which makes is quite cold in the winter. Single pane glass on all the doors and windows doesn't help either. My space heater works fairly well if I close the door to my room, but once I turn it off the heat goes away generally in 30 minutes or less. It also sucks power like a beast and if I were to constantly have it on I can't even imagine what my bill for the month would be.

Winter does signal the coming of something good though. As the seasons change Japanese breweries release seasonal beers. The various winter brews are some of the best around, and really do seem to capture the essence of the season in a beer. How exactly they manage to do it I'm not quite sure, but it's lovely.

I've also recently be afflicted with what (according to some quick research on Wikpedia) I believe to be a stye on my right eye. It seems that they tend to go away over time by themselves and cause no harm. They just make it hurt to blink which is a bit unfortunate for me seeing as I tend to blink somewhere upwards of 1000 times on any given day.