No two are alike: 冬と雪：北海道の生活 -- Winter and Snow: Daily life in Hokkaido

I meant to post this back in December, so please excuse the length...

I mentioned snow before winter last month, but I'm so glad there aren't as many 雪虫 (yukimushi), snow bugs, as there is snow. Why?

Let's just say that the first three days it snowed was enough to make me regret not buying boots earlier like I said I would, especially in the morning when I had to make my way to my neighbor's car in snow reaching above my ankle wearing only tennis shoes and jeans. Yikes. Also, tennis shoes are too slippery! Try walking on black ice with that. Black ice being the most dangerous because it hides under snow and you don't know it's there, and I'm pretty sure I knew this before, but forgot after living in a no-winter land, California, for eight years. I was lucky enough to have someone drive me after school to go buy some boots, although those proved slippery too.

As I'm writing this, it's another one of those "doesn't stop snowing" days, and the sky is simply white with a tint of grey. Walking home in that tires my eyes out because everything's white and my depth perception basically expires and it wouldn't be surprising if I were to trip on some snow I couldn't perceive as higher than my foot. If it's not snowing, it's really cold, even with the sun out. I walked to my BoE for the English conversation club, and it doesn't take more than 3 minutes, but I swear the inside of my nose froze!

A few pictures:

About the first day of snow.

My neighbor's car (that's nothing, it's had twice that amount since).


My kerosene tank, aka my snow gauge.

The next day, probably.

Good old times...

These are the first couple of days that it snowed, it's gotten worse since. I sort of use the kerosene tank as a gauge to see how much it snowed because usually when I shovel out my path, I clear it too (except now there's a layer of ice on top).

At the beginning of December, all the ALTs had a "conference" (renamed from Mid-Year Conference to Skills Development Conference, probably because December is not mid-year for us incoming JETs? Who knows...), which is really just an excuse to gather everyone in the city, especially those who are out in the middle of nowhere so they don't get depressed or commit suicide in the middle of winter, which we've been told has happened. Also the reason there's so many phone numbers and people to contact if need be. So S. and I left the night before, having reserved a business hotel (only ￥2100 for a night!) in Nakajimakouen (famous hotel neighborhood in Sapporo).

I was surprised to see very little snow, especially because in my town it had a good... 20 cm+? The only mysterious thing was the frozen sidewalks, randomly, half a sidewalk would turn to ice (extremely slippery, especially in heels that one time!) for no apparent reason. Sapporo might be cold, but snow wise, we have it worse. And I think that's mostly true all the time, Iwamizawa too seems to have those bad near blizzards that cities beyond us don't experience. Strange.

Regardless, I stayed an extra night to enjoy Sapporo and the company of my rare foreigner friends and so came back on Saturday early evening. Mind you, I'd left on Wednesday late afternoon. And my toilet had frozen, both the water inside the bowl and the pipe(s)!! I freaked out a little, but having turned on the stove I heard a strange sound a while later and rushed to find the bowl filling with water, uninterrupted, I went to let it flow and in my rush pulled the lever that adds water. It nearly overflowed, but thank goodness, it didn't. And after I emptied it a second time, it was nice, there was just a strange smell and I hope a pipe somewhere hadn't burst.

More pictures: