Explore everyday life in Japan
Having grown up near the shores of Lake Ontario in Upstate New York, I'm used to heavy snow and have an idea of what the best way to remove it is: snow blowers, pick-up trucks fitted with hydraulic plows, heavy-duty highway snow plows, salt, and of course, snow shovels.
When I came to Japan, I was surprised to find that running water is often the preferred way to keep snow from accumulating in parking lots, and a common way to melt the snow and soften the thick accumulations of ice that build up in Japan's narrow streets.
Of course, snow removal equipment and customs vary from place to place in Japan, and there are areas where snow blowers and highway snow plows are used, but where I live, perforated hoses and sprinklers trickling a steady stream of water are often relied on to do a lot of the work.
Depending on the drainage of the area being flooded with water, this method can work very well. However, if the water doesn't have a place to go, the result is a large, inconvenient puddle of slushy water that you have to either somehow make your way around, or, if you're wearing long rubber boots, which are pretty standard footwear in the parts of Japan with heavy rain and snowfall, you'll be lucky enough to be able to walk right through.
When facing obstacles like this, it's nice to be prepared.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.