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We had our first onsen (zero carbon foot-print, volcanically powered, super-duper, all singing, all dancing, hot spring) of the New Year yesterday. We must have been in those volcanically heated juices for well over an hour and Ifan loved every second of it. I’m told that Mika and Meu loved the experience too, but, as this is partitioned (due to it being naked) bathing, I wouldn’t be able to tell you for sure. Apparently, all Meu wanted to do was drink water from the water fountain, “because she was bored”. I suppose, for a yet-to-be-two-year-old, the excitement gleaned from a shiny water fountain takes precedence over such things as one’s first ever onsen. Especially one’s first ever solid hour’s worth of onsen!

On leaving the baths, Ifan and I sat down with a bottle of Grape Qoo (which was pleasantly refreshing) to watch some Japanese TV - the females of our party were still soaking their collective corns, one can assume. The programme that was on the telly was very Tarrant-esque: a woman given the challenge of eating a number of “exotic” (read “dodgy”) dishes. But, and it’s a very big “BUT”, this was no laver bread or bara bryth ye tender bellied people of the west, and it was not reflective of any vernacular Japanese cuisine I’ve been privy to either.

She (and a very fetching Japanese lady she was too) commenced the proceedings with a plate full of baked snake, then moved on to three steamed, medium-sized, yet whole pigs brains, and then there was the whole, extremely large, raw frog, which she had to cook herself by pulling it apart with chopsticks and then boiling it piece by piece (she ate the lot with a gusto). This little lot was topped with tiny chicks of a bird variety that was not chicken, goose, nor duck - it may have been quail but I very much doubt it. Anyway, this plate-full of about 10 cute little fellas all still had fluffy feathers adorning their now braised breasts.

Alas, she made no headway into these feathered friends but she did make plenty of “eee” sounds, a plethora of “yada”s and so on and so forth - if you know any Japanese women, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Shortly thereafter the females in our party came out with a rosy glow to join us. And then we went outside.

The coldest I have ever been was in Korea, which was nowhere near as cold as my mate Ian Parsons, former Camp Commander of the British Antarctic Survey, has undoubtedly been. But even on that occasion, for the sake of my ears, I forced myself to buy a really stoopid [sic] looking hat!

As mentioned, I’ve been in colder climes but there’s nothing I’ve found that compares to the ridiculous nature of Japanese houses in the winter. They’re b@$&@#d f- f- fr- freee-frreeezzin’!

Generally constructed using un-insulated timber (stud) walls, there is zero insulation in the roof cavity and they are built directly on an ice box of a concrete base, with single glazing and a solitary air con unit to heat umpteen cubic metres of cavity, they are anything but an eskimo’s wet dream.

And so, when considering emigrating with your family please do bear in mind that staying at your energy conscious in-law’s house, when jet lag has overtaken the family, may not be in your best interests. You may well find yourself spending the night drinking a steady flow of beer and going from partially heated room to partially heated room as quickly as possible so as to offset the rapidly approaching effects of hypothermia. And that my friends, from a Welshman who has just spent the last few years insulating, double-glazing, and fitting a brand new heating system to his house, is no word of a lie!!!

1. Haircut tomorrow (maybe?);
2. Beers with Leigh and James in Shinjuku in the evening;
3. Shiyakusho (city hall) to register the family in Saitama on Thurs;
4. Poss beers with Dave in the evening;
5. Tokyo Disneyland on Fri;
6. Ifan’s 8th birthday on Sat;
7. Poss meet Dave’s family on Sun;
8. Training in Iidabashi Mon to Fri 9-17hrs…

Let the good times roll!