Life in Japan - Pictures galore !! Arcades, Temples, Rainy days, etc

For the record, I wound up in Chicago. I experienced my first 0 Fahrenheit day ever today. That's -16 for you Celcius people.

 

Hopefully your just visiting.

 

-16?! Man, that is cold. I've never experienced that myself.

 

Try Minnesota. Gets below zero F before winter, and the windchill is about as bad as Chicago.

 

Minnesota is a whole new level. Chicago's no fucking cakewalk either. Great city though. Tokyo could definitely take some notes. Not on the use of public toilets though - totally fucked in that respect.

 

Did someone say winter traditional Japan photos? Because I've got some from areas like Kawagoe, Kyoto and Nara.

​

 

I like the Golden Temple covered in snow reflecting in to the lake.

We got snow in the UK too while on Holiday over there for Christmas. Just as well since there was no snow where I live in Japan as always.

 

I like that one too! For some weird reason, people kept throwing snowballs onto the ice.

I was quite thrilled too,it had been about 15 years since I last saw any snow! Still waiting for it to snow in my area though.

 

Really nice pictures FireAza! I love snow in Japan.

Here are some pics from Osaka, sorry for the quality it's from my mobile

 

-46ºC is my record...

 

You can keep it.

 

>Chicago
>-16ºC

>UK
>-46ºC

 

Combined w/ the lunatic drivers, I'll never go to Russia.

 

I live in Russia but certainly don't want to live in THAT area. Was in the coldest place in Antarctica though where it was like - you take that mask off, take 2-3 deep breaths and boom, you're dead. -85.7C isn't a joke. And the lowest recorded temperature was about -95C. In my place (Moscow) anything below -20C in february is a rare occasion. But i can't forget that 2010 frying pan of a summer when i was unable to use my desktop because it was overheating in about 10 minutes at maximum load, it was 45C in my room.

 

At least you did not experience the record snow falls last winter. It snowed everyday for like a fucking month and a half.

 

I had a very strange experience the other day. I had to visit Iwakuni in Yamaguchi on a business trip. Anyway, Iwakuni is a strange place as the weather there is effected by the mountains that surround the city. I travelled there by Shinkansen. Shitty rain all the way until I came out of a short tunnel and saw this!



Yep, that's a shot taken from the Shinkansen as I rushed past a snowy area at 100mph (160kmph). WTF! I thought. But arriving at the station I was greeted with this.



The place was covered in snow!. All the way up here was rain and after Iwakuni was nothing but rain. Only this one area was covered in snow. Very odd.

 

Yeah -- I was aware of the polar vortex, and everyone reminded me what a nightmare it was. There's been some cold days but this is totally manageable. The salt everywhere is a nuisance though.

 

Ha, the polar vortex was something else... I'll never forget going to work in it one day. I got up there, unlocked the building, walked in, and saw a thick cloud of smoke pouring out of the ceiling vents. So I immediately ran over to the circuit breaker and shut off the central heat for the complex. For the rest of the day, I sat around in -23 C conditions getting harassed by neighboring businesses and occupants. They kept demanding me to turn it back on! I kept telling them that the complex would burn to the ground if I did, but they wanted to take the risk. Even my supervisor caved under pressure and told me "it would be fine" to turn it back on.

After calling the owner of the complex and an electrician to come and check everything out, it turned out that the central heater in the complex did catch fire! So after it was confirmed that turning the heat on really would have burned everything to the ground, the harassment shifted to "is it fiiiiixeeeed yeeeett??? im cold!!". Not one of these people stopped to think "my life's work could have turned into ashes in seconds", or maybe "I was an unwarranted dick all day".

In retrospect, maybe I should have let them turn the switch back on.

 

Jesus -- I'm somehow not surprised!

 

Direct from the phone and uploaded while on the train. Three unedited images from my life at work

The view from the office window where I work.


Looking on down the track hoping the train will arrive soon.

Now that's caught my attention!