We finally had our big kerosene heater installed last week, much to Christina's (and our) relief. It's kind of a shame that a Tohoku winter vacation based out of Pension Let's Sharing will no longer have a full day of seeing your breath inside as an attraction. Then again, it's nice to be able to feel my hands during the day.

Here's our new best friend:



You can't read the placard on the front, but it is, appropriately, an "Excellent" heater.

A color photograph of a black and white world.

On some of the roads here — especially those that seem to run at odd angles — the street points directly at a mountain peak. The result can be quite striking when you go down one of them on a clear day.





I'm not sure of the reason for this. My guess is that these are some of the oldest roads around (one I know for sure is quite old), and the mountain peaks were used as guides for the construction of straight roads.

Opinions expressed in this photo are solely those of Moki, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Let's Sharing management.

At dinner the other night, a local friend brought a small piece of wasabi and a grater along. The grater surface is sharkskin.



He showed us how to grate the wasabi by gently rubbing the root in circles on the grater, then let the rest of us try. We ate it on sashimi of octopus, squid, and salmon. Oishikatta desu!

Sponge cakes with strawberries, whipped cream, and placards
Cheesecakes with gold dust for holiday snackers
Chocolate yule logs with Santas and sleighs
These are a few of the cakey displays . . .

Here in Japan, no Christmas is complete without a Christmas cake. Christmas cake is traditionally sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries. It has morphed into far more extravagant things, like cheesecakes or chocolate cakes covered in ganache (melted chocolate mixed with cream, and sometimes liqueur). You can also get them decorated with white chocolate Mickey-head plaques or holiday wishes from Kitty-chan.

Grocery stores, conbini, and patisseries have had these glossy brochures out for about three weeks now, advertising their scrumptious holiday wares.

I have no idea what those "targets" are there for, but they sure make this tree look like some kind of monster from Doctor Who.

We've gotten varying stories on when the snow comes to Kitakami. Mostly, we'd been told the first snow is usually near the end of December, or not until January. But another local said it usually snows around the end of November or beginning of December. So we didn't really know what to expect.

Yesterday's forecast called for some snow flurries in the middle of the night. So, we were a little surprised that when we went out to meet some friends at 5pm, there was snow already falling, and by the time we returned home, there was even some on the ground.

This morning we awoke to six inches of snow on the ground, and big flakes still falling! Eventually the snow got much lighter and the sun came out, so we walked the dogs.

Chrysanthemums are in season now, and some people are very serious about cultivating them.



These ones are part of an array that runs the length of the house behind them. They're a welcome shot of color on a gray day like today.

On sunny days, everyone hangs their laundry out to dry and their futons out to air. We're no exception.



The kakebutons (like comforters) are very fat and fluffy because we've put both layers in the set together for the winter.