a table that is more than a table

I just set up my kotatsu for the first time and OH MY GOD.
this is amazing.

for months my kotatsu sat in my living room, functioning as a mere regular table. i ate on it. i put books on it. I used my laptop on it. But now in Fukuoka, it's starting to get cold. Well as cold as it does get down here in Kyushu. Winter temperatures drop to around freezing, and snow is rare. sounds mild, but Japanese homes have NO insulation, which means if it's 32 degrees outside, it's 32 degrees inside, too, unless you do something about it. Japan relies on space heaters instead of insulation and central heat.

A kotatsu is a square table with a space on the underside for an electric heater to be screwed in. Additionally the tabletop is removable so that you can sandwich a blanket between the table fram and the tabletop surface. brilliant. So now i am sandwiched between a blanket on the floor and a blanket at table-level, with all this delicious heat being trapped inside and warming happily. To sweeten the deal, when i took off the tabletop to put the blanket in, i found that it is reversable. All this time i had been using white and now i have switched it to sexy black.

Icing on the cake? i'm using the internet for free, eating a bowl of spicy curry, and sipping a an autumn ale. Mochi for dessert.

Lovin' it. Now if only i didn't have to wake up in 8 hours.

This is my kotatsu:









I'm now eating a kotatsu mochi and am gonna fire up the wii for 15 minutes or so of kotatsu smash brothers before i crawl into my cold, unheated bed. I can see why people like to sleep in here.