雪の写真ばっかり -- Just pictures of snow

As promised, another post! Although, I feel like I should dedicate this one to pictures of snow. Just. Snow. Perhaps I just want to force my winter experience onto you, or perhaps you'll enjoy imagining living through this. (Which is it?)

It's nearly April, isn't it? Well, it was snowing just the other day (the 26th), and it makes us (yes, even the locals) all wonder until when it will melt for good. (For now, all it does is melt a little, then freeze at night, making it either difficult to walk through sleet, or extremely dangerous to slip on barely visible ice).

January 11th, 2012: I just came back from winter break in California and a few days in Tokyo. Of course, it's snowing, not quite a blizzard, but there's a good 25-30 centimeters of snow on the "road" to my house, so bad the taxi doesn't want to venture there and get stuck (nor do I ask him to). After 30 minutes of battling the snow on the ground and dragging one suitcase at a time, I make it to my house. The only reason I'm able to enter it, by the way, is because I have very kind colleagues, but this one in particular said he'd shovel the entrance, turn on my heater and turn the water back on (which had frozen regardless, it took him a good 2 to 3 hours?). I can't thank him enough.

As you can tell from the pictures, my feet and legs were quite cold by the time I made it inside.

Left leg, jean: frozen (would hardly bend).

Shoes: frozen.

COLD!

Right leg, jean: frozen.

Can you guess? Yep, frozen olive oil.

I do believe that's my breath you see.

My house, with a cleared path.

A sidewalk, though a preview of how narrow they get.

An empty house. Just look at that untouched snow!

A street. Not a great shot, but...

I present to you, the next day (I kid you not):

I literally couldn't walk out of my house.

Compare to above. Seriously.

Roof, meet ground. Ground, roof.

It snowed what, 40 cm over night?

After shoveling my way out.

See how the snow is about as tall as that car?

One of the empty houses.

The front of the BoE.

And with those implanted in your brains, I take my leave! The next snow pictures I'll share will most likely be those of the Snow Festival in Sapporo. Until then, stay warm (though, your spring is probably on its way... Lucky!)