Norovirus debut

Norovirus disease is very common in Japan where people customary eat raw shellfish such as oysters. The norovirus is highly contagious so small children tend to catch it at schools or nurseries and the parents often get it from their children.

I don't have any children and I had never got the norovirus until this week. I suddenly felt very, very ill on Wednesday. It was even hard to walk around at home, so I couldn't go to a doctor or chemist despite being so ill. Generally, when I get sick, I search on the internet to see what my illness is and what medicines I should take. However, this time, I was even unable to sit at the desk so I just stayed on my bed for a whole day.

My husband came home at around 0.30 am and told me that I had a fever. He said I should take the painkiller he got from the dentist when he removed his wisdom tooth. I was rather suspicious but it actually relieved the pain and allowed me sleep. On the next day, I felt much better and could walk around without a problem.

My brother told me yesterday that he had exactly the same symptom after he had eaten oysters.

Oh yes, oysters... I certainly had oysters Monday evening.

They were sold at a special price at the supermarket.  No wonder why.

Pandas come to Japan

Giant pandas are perhaps the most popular animal in Japan.
Two giant pandas are coming to Japan from China this evening, and many Japanese are excited about their arrival.

The first two pandas came to Ueno Zoo in Tokyo in 1972 to commemorate the restoration of diplomatic relations between Japan and China. Since then, there was always at least one panda at Ueno Zoo until three years ago when the last panda died.

Giant pandas are rented from China to Tokyo at an incredible cost.  It costs Tokyo about 83 million yen (1 million US dollars) per year to rent the giant pandas to Ueno Zoo. In addition, Ueno Zoo spent 90 million yen (1.1 million US dollars) to reform the panda house. It is fully air conditioned with floor heating in winter and has a big swimming pool. Their special foods cost 18,850 yen (235 US dollars) per day.

All of these are paid, of course, from our tax!

Wisdom removed

Yesterday, my husband went to a dentist to have wisdom tooth removed. It took him nearly 2 years to make up his mind after his dentist suggested. He said that the surgery took for a few hours when he had another wisdom tooth removed and the experience was horrible.

The extraction procedure seemed to have gone very smoothly yesterday and finished within 45 minutes. My hasband said that the anesthetic injection was a bit painful but effective. He went to bed early last night before the anesthetic wears off completely and he could eat normally this morning.

The wisdom tooth is called "Oyashirazu" in Japanese, which literally means "(the tooth that) parents don't know", because it develops after one's adolescence. I perfer the Japanese term to the English one.

Who would want his wisdom removed?

Warm and windy

It wasn't an intention of this blog to record everyday weather in Tokyo, but I haven't been going out much these days and there isn't much happening in my life.

Anyway, it was very windy today. In my old apartment, the windows were constantly making loud noise. It was even hard to walk straight when I went shopping in the evening.

While winds were strong, it was unusually warm during the day. Some of my spring plants started flowering. I think that they made a mistake because the cold weather is focasted to return tomorrow.

It's cold and I have a cold.

It all started a couple of weeks ago. First, I had a sore throat and felt a chill. I went to a chemist and bought a medicine for colds. After taking the medcine for a few days, I felt much better, but then my husband became ill. He said that he caught a cold from me, so I gave him my medicine. A few days later, while my husband got better, I started coughing. My husband said that that's because I stopped taking the medicine before my full recovery. We both took the medicine for a few days and finished the pack. During the next few days, we were both well, and even went to the gym to do some exercises. However, my husband came back home very late last Saturday when it snowed and was very cold. He started coughing and seemed ill. He went to the chemist on the next day and started takig the cold medicine again. And, guess what? Since this morning, I have a sore throat. Boy..., when can we get out of this negative spiral?

Snow again, but sunny now.

It snowed again last night in Tokyo. It was heavier than the last week's snow and it accumulated to 2 cm from the ground, according to the Met Agancy. Snow piled up on my doffodils and its stem was bent..., however they regained the strength today so I felt relieved.

It was Valentine's Day yesterday. Some of the major trains were stopped last night, and I hope that people who were out for dinner could safely go back home. Trains and flights are back to normal since this morning as it became sunny much earlier than the Met Agency forcasted.  It was very cold in the morning due to radiative cooling, but the weather is easing in the afternoon.

Snow in Tokyo

It is snowing in Tokyo today. It is the first time in this winter to have this much snow in Tokyo. In the morning, the snow contained lots of water so it did not accumulate on the ground. It has now changed to more like a real snow... It is very cold too, with the maximum day time temperature of 2 degrees celcius.

Japan Meteorogical Agency has issued a snow warning, which is generally issued when the Agency expects more than 5 cm of snow on the ground in Tokyo. (In more snowy regions where people are accustomed to much snow and where the infrastructure is well equipped, the warning may be issues for more than 40 cm of snow.) When I was a child, such snow occured perhpas a few times a year, but in recent years, it became less and less frequent and occurs once in a few years.

Today is the national foundation day, a public holiday in Japan, so is the start of a long weekend. Unfortunately, snow is expected to last until tomorrow, so I'm going to be at home most of the weekend...

The start of spring

Today is "risshun" in the Japanese calendar, which literally means "the start of spring".

Just as it says, it is sunny and warm like spring today in Tokyo. It is a nice change after the severe cold weather for the past few weeks.

Record snow in Japan

Japan Meteorological Agency announced yesterday that the amount of snow in January was the highest on record at 37 weather stations located mostly on the Sea of Japan side of Japan. In Tokyoku and Hokuriku in the north of Honshu, the snow amount exceeded 3 metres. On the other hand, the climate on the Pacific Ocean side of Japan remained summy and recorded extremely low precipitation.

The deepest accumulated snow was observed in Uonuma in Niigata with 4.09 metres. The measurement was the second highest on record and twice as much as the average year.

JMA reported that this extreme weather in Japan was caused by Arctic Oscillation and La Nina, which brought intermissive frost over the Japanese archipelago from the Japan Sea side.


Yes, it's been very dry here in Tokyo. It's the first time I need to put so much moisturiser on my skin. It is also very, very cold.  I generally don't turn on a heater during the daytime to save energy, but I cought cold last week and I now use heating all day long.