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A waterwheel at the Jindaiji Temple complex, Chofu

Couple sleeping in a dinghy on Inokashira pond yesterday (a remarkably mild 14 degrees)

Plate twirling in Inokashira Koen yesterday

Winter. Here we are, stuck in the meat of it.

Tyler was being all real on the bridge in the park the other day, theorising that we are now in the meat of winter, with nothing at all to look forward to to break up the mundanity until Hanami (in late March - if we're lucky). I thought it was a pretty good description of this time of year.

So just what does being in the meat of winter mean exactly? Being a humble tropical kid, it's a kinda new thing to me. From my personal experience of Japanese winters (in my 4th now), it has come to mean a quiet time where everyone settles into a kind of introspective hibernation. There are not a lot of parties, people just seem to get settled into a groove where they (maybe) catch up on all those little personal projects they haven't finished yet. Read books. Watch movies. Check out all those websites they've been meaning to check out for ages. Study. Hang out anywhere that's warm. Fight off the winter blues...

The fantabulous Misssin (who is right now in transit to Australia for a well earned summer holiday) linked to a story that determines that January 23rd is "offically" the saddest day of the year (in the UK anyway):

An expert in winter disorders first identified January as the most stressful month. Now Cliff Arnall, a health psychologist at Cardiff University, has devised a formula to work out the worst day of the year and has come up with Jan 23 for 2006. His calculation is based on the poorest weather, debts owed for seasonal spending, the time since Christmas, the period of time before you abandon New Year's resolutions, the dates when motivation levels seems to be at their lowest and the timing for the need for action to escape the blues.

Yeah, the ol' resolutions. Bwa ha ha ha. My own rekindled site pro-activism seems to have ground to a halt in light of a wash of external work commitments and mildly-stress-inducing financial tricksiness. But gee my room is clean. And I actually sewed the buttons back on to my favourite jumper. Procrastination, my eternal companion.

Tomorrow I'm off for my annual harrowing trek to the Shinagawa Dept. of Immigration. Let's see if they let me self sponsor again...

frangipani wrote this on January 17, 2006 12:11 AM

frangipani

said:

Thanks Gleek, Japan will always be here waiting for you to move here for a while...

Thanks Nicole. Immigration got postponed when I realised I didn't have quite the right documents... next week.

Eric, I settled into a cool little Okinawan bar in Koenji last Friday night with a friend and drank huge cups of some special awamori as recommended by the cooks there. As we looked around we realised pretty much everyone was doing awamori (unsurprisingly as we were in an Okinawan bar) or some other heated sake's.

It was positively lethal and both my friend and I thought our heads were going to explode. On the way home on the train we were giggling messes. But yeah, we were both warm, I'll say that much... don't know if I could do it every night but I'm sure there are those that are capable of it.

There is certainly a tradition of drinking heated sake in winter. There is even a watered down version that teenagers are allowed to drink at New Years. I think it's called amazake? Or comething like that....

I believe that sake is actually the Japanese word for *all* alcohol. What the west knows as "sake" is actually a whole world of distinct alcohols, like Nihonshu, Umeshu, Shochu, etc etc etc and they each have quite distinct flavours and made in very different ways. Exploring them all makes for quite an educational experience, let me tell you.

Glad you like the pics.

On January 17, 2006 4:12 PM,

Due to the proliferation of comment spam, I've closed comments on all older entries. If you would like to leave a comment for this post, please email me directly at martine {at} frangipani {dot} info and I'll add it manually. Thank you and sorry for any inconvience caused.

nicole said:

Perhaps this time of year is just called Post New Year blues?! I don't usually like early January too much (even though it's summer) - too many people leaving after being home briefly for the holidays, lots of self-evaluation going on etc etc.

Ganbatte at the Immigration office tomorrow!! :)

On January 17, 2006 12:12 PM,

Eric at Paris Daily Photo said:

I saw on another blog a ritual of drinking sake after the new year....does this help keep people warm? Great photos as usual! I really enjoy your work!

On January 17, 2006 1:37 PM,

J. said:

Martine, you wrote "I believe that sake is actually the Japanese word for *all* alcohol." I agree with that sentence. It also implies that beer and wine are also covered by this word, not only the Japanese alcoholic drinks that you mention.

Western people often think that the word sake is to indicate "ricewine", which is in fact nihonshu.

On January 17, 2006 8:53 PM,

Well, it sounds a little like you're an expert ;-) I'll just have to take your word for it I suppose, but feel free to continue researching the topic if you think it might be required.

On January 19, 2006 2:51 PM,

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In the meat of winter