Jan to Feb is the season having with a lot of snow as well as the lowest temperature in a year. Cold days with temperature which doesn’t reach 0℃ keep continuing in whole this period. It’s often around 0℃ even in South part of Hokkaido like Hakodate which is much warmer than other part of Hokkaido as well.
The temperature in Asahikawa and other cities in North Hokkaido decrease to -10℃ that makes us feel pain rather than cold. When we see the temperature which is higher than zero degrees Celsius in the weather forecast in Jan to Feb, most of local people happily recognizes “It’s a warm day”.
The temperature gap between inside and outside is very large in this period. If you wear thick clothes to match below zero degrees Celsius for outside, may feel too hot when you shop in the shopping malls and department stores. I mentioned several times, but let me emphasize again that layering is very helpful in winter in Hokkaido.
One of the examples of layering for me in -5 ℃ is as follows
Tops:
Underwear: Uniqlo’s heat tech long t-shirts
Shirts :Turtle neck t-shirts
Sweater: Wool sweater
Coat: Long Wool made coat or down jacket
Bottoms
Stockings:Thick stockings
Socks: wool made socks or double layering of cotton made socks
Pants: Wool made pants
Besides the clothings, other fashion items such as wool gloves, scarf, hat and earmuffs are also very helpful to protect coldness. In terms of shoes, the best one is winter shoes which are effective for walking on the snow or slippy road commonly sold at local shoes shops. The second option to avoid falling over on the snow or frozen road is to put non-slip attachments on your own shoes.
Finally, I highly recommend a very useful item to keep the body warm when extremely cold or you plan to stay outside for long hours.
It’s disposable heating pad.
The heat effect continues more than 10 hours so it helps your body not to be getting cold for a while. Once attaching it on your back, you could feel much comfortable even under the cold weather. It is usually sold at convenience stores, drug stores and supermarkets.
I hope everyone enjoy snow and even the coldness in winter of Hokkaido!
