There's one thing that you should know about my wife, T-chan. She hates spiders. That's ok. So do I. However, she doesn't stop there. She HATES all insects (mushi). Big or small. Cockroaches and mosquito's are something she particularly hates. Oh - and especially spiders that look more like small mammals.
Come summer - we have an over-abundance of native fauna that like to see if they can take up residence in our house. That door is to our pantry... now I appreciate a late-night snack as much as the next biped. I don't appreciate sharing with the likes of this little fellow. And as you can see from comparing to a standard SD Card (that just happened to fall down beside him), he's not so big yet. [Reference: An SD card is 3cm - or about 1.2 inches - long]
The thing is - T-chan has almost no experience with insects of any real size or annoyance in Sapporo. I'm not saying that Sapporo has no insects - the inner (nightlife) city, Susukino, has a lot of unpleasant creatures, and insects as well. But out in the suburbs there just doesn't appear to be that many. I'm not sure if this says something about how clean T-chan's family keep their house, or how the Sapporo winters are a good way of keeping insects in check. Not sure. All I know is that it's been a continual struggle for T-chan to adjust (and tolerate) the high levels of insect life we have here in Adelaide.
Now back to our friend above... normally he's a leaf litter spider, but will inhabit houses if it's convenient. As it turns out, he's relatively harmless (he will bite, but the bite is not that painful). Still. A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. So I should just stop writing now. Perhaps later I'll recount the story about the spider with hundreds of babies on it's back.... some other time.
And yes - the moon is getting full, so who knows what else we'll find in the house.
Japanese Lesson:
Spider - kumo (クモ)
Scary - kowai (怖い)
Insect - mushi (虫)
For me, his legs are very thick for a spider. I would be surprised.
ReplyDeleteKatya hates insects in Kofu; for her they are big, strange, and move fast. Katya says she understands how T-chan feels.
Ahhh - then you should see our huntsman spiders... they're even bigger. Not quite tarantula sized, but nasty looking anyway (but actually also relatively harmless).
ReplyDeleteHmmm - were does Katya come from inside Russia... T-chan might want to visit if they don't have horrible spiders. Sounds like Kofu definitely has it's share of insects then. Not sure why we see so few in Sapporo.
Katya comes from Vladivostok, close to Japan. She says Russia is basically cold anywhere, but Vladivostok is colder.
ReplyDeleteKatya especially hates roaches and centipedes. She says she feels sorry for T-chan.
Brrrrr. Vladivostok. That sounds VERY cold... and looking at the average minimums of -17 degrees celsius in January... that's amazingly cold.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I see what you mean by close to Japan... actually, it's only 765km from Vladivostok and Sapporo (and it's on the same latitude).