Winter whiteouts, freezing weather and power outages everywhere from Europe to Washington and Beijing have been making headlines these last few months, but as fingers by the million have been going numb, Japan has one nifty weapon of mass defrostation to alleviate the seasonal problem: self-warming pads.
Popularly known as kairo, literally meaning "fire inside the pocket," these pads emitting neither flames nor smoke nonetheless warm the cockles of many a Japanese heart when the mercury takes its seasonal dive.
With the disposable types, all you need to do is to rip off the outside plastic wrap and shake the bag a few times — though some types nowadays even don't need shaking. Then the pads automatically warm up to 50 or 60 C and continue exuding their heat for up to 20 hours.