{"id":2074,"date":"2025-03-05T09:58:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T00:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/?p=2074"},"modified":"2025-03-05T09:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T00:59:11","slug":"trainee-column3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/trainee-column3\/","title":{"rendered":"Trainee column#3"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong data-start=\"83\" data-end=\"120\">Starting Life in the Snow Area, Akita in Japan \u2460.<\/strong><\/h2><p data-start=\"110\" data-end=\"150\"><em data-start=\"110\" data-end=\"150\">&#8220;Just set your clock 5 minutes ahead.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><p data-start=\"152\" data-end=\"219\">My life in the snow country started with these words from a friend.<\/p><p data-start=\"152\" data-end=\"219\">\u00a0<\/p><p data-start=\"221\" data-end=\"258\">Hello! &#x1f60a; I\u2019m Megumi, the trainee.<\/p><p data-start=\"260\" data-end=\"428\">In this post, I will share about my first time living in a snow country. I grew up in the Seto Inland Sea area, where snow falls just a little once every three years! &#x26c4;<\/p><div id=\"attachment_2080\" style=\"width: 248px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2080\" class=\"wp-image-2080\" src=\"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/S__3325963.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"238\" height=\"317\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2080\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">cute!<\/p><\/div><p><strong data-start=\"434\" data-end=\"458\"><br \/><\/strong>You may be wondering, \u201cWhy set the clock ahead?\u201d I was also thinking, \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/p><p data-start=\"554\" data-end=\"734\">Apparently, when the snow starts falling a lot, it\u2019s hard to get the car ready and drive on snow-covered roads. So, it\u2019s very important to start everything just a little earlier! &#x23f0;<\/p><p data-start=\"736\" data-end=\"879\">At first, I wasn\u2019t sure if 5 minutes would really make a difference, but during the winter, those 5 minutes saved me many times in the morning!<\/p><div id=\"attachment_2079\" style=\"width: 298px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2079\" class=\"wp-image-2079 \" src=\"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/S__3325967.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"288\" height=\"384\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2079\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Super useful snow shovel for the car!<\/p><\/div><p>&nbsp;<\/p><p data-start=\"928\" data-end=\"1152\">When I started warming up the car, brushing off the snow, and leaving early to get the car ready, I thought I was getting used to it. But one day, I thought, \u201cOh, it didn\u2019t snow today, so I\u2019m fine,\u201d and left a little later.<\/p><p data-start=\"1154\" data-end=\"1326\">Then, I realized that the snow that had melted earlier was now frozen on the windshield, and a heavy snow wall was blocking the front of the car! I couldn\u2019t get out! ( \uff9f\u0414\uff9f)<\/p><p data-start=\"1328\" data-end=\"1446\">Then I remembered, \u201c I have 5 more minutes! &#8220;<\/p><p data-start=\"1448\" data-end=\"1569\">I\u2019m still getting used to it, and sometimes it takes longer than I expect to deal with snow depending on how it\u2019s fallen.<\/p><div id=\"attachment_2077\" style=\"width: 356px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2077\" class=\"wp-image-2077\" src=\"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/S__3317772_0.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"346\" height=\"461\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2077\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lake Tazawa is Amazing Every Time &#x1f31f;<\/p><\/div><p>&nbsp;<\/p><p data-start=\"1617\" data-end=\"1821\">I had heard that you should keep water running in the pipes so they don\u2019t freeze, but other things around the house also freeze. In the beginning, even my dish soap and contact lens solution froze! ( \uff40\u30fc\u00b4)<\/p><p data-start=\"1823\" data-end=\"1987\">I had to use a sponge with frozen dish soap, and I felt sad seeing my newly opened contact lenses frozen. I learned to keep them in a warm room to prevent freezing.<\/p><div id=\"attachment_2076\" style=\"width: 354px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2076\" class=\"wp-image-2076\" src=\"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/image0-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"344\" height=\"459\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2076\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shoveling snow is like a workout! (\/\u30fb\u03c9\u30fb)\/<\/p><\/div><p>&nbsp;<\/p><p data-start=\"2040\" data-end=\"2222\">Since the whole house becomes like a fridge, even the bouquet of flowers I bought in December is still blooming (this was a big surprise! Maybe because the water doesn\u2019t get warm?).<\/p><p data-start=\"2224\" data-end=\"2299\">Also, the food in the fridge doesn\u2019t change whether I keep it in or not. &#x1f337;<\/p><p data-start=\"2301\" data-end=\"2406\">I\u2019ve found that putting canned beer or sake in the snow to chill makes them taste even better somehow! &#x1f37a;<\/p><pre data-start=\"2408\" data-end=\"2470\"><strong data-start=\"2412\" data-end=\"2470\">Dealing with Snow Takes Time and Effort, But It\u2019s Fun!<\/strong><\/pre><p data-start=\"2472\" data-end=\"2604\">Every day is full of new experiences, and even though dealing with snow takes time and effort, I\u2019m enjoying every bit of it! (o^\u2015^o)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starting Life in the Snow Area, Akita in Japan \u2460.&#8220;Just set your clock 5 minutes ahead.&#8221;My life in  [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,50,96,51,41,24,35,32,36,28,31,22,49],"class_list":["post-2074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-report","tag-akita","tag-greentourism","tag-rural-japan","tag-rural-life","tag-samurai-street","tag-semboku","tag-ski","tag-snow","tag-snowboarding","tag-sugoi-japan","tag-tazawako","tag-tohoku","tag-tourism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2074"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2094,"href":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074\/revisions\/2094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semboku-gt.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}