So we've been having a little snow last week...
things have cleared up now, but it was a bit of a pain in the neck at the time.
The thing about the snow down here is that no one is prepared for it. There are no snow plows, no snow shovels, no warm winter clothing, not even those little thingys to scrape the ice off of your windshield in the morning. Me and my neighbors just come outside with a bottle of hot water to pour on the windshield instead.
So when it snows, everything shuts down. Just a little bit of snow makes the roads undriveable. The cars don't have tires fit for snow, and the mountain roads are very dangerous when slippery. And unlike the big wide roads we have in American, there is no shoulder on the roads here in the country side of Japan. No room for error. If you slide a little bit, you're into the ditch.
And, since my town is in a valley (with no trains), I have to go over a mountain to get out, and then back over one to get back in again. (Or a big hill at least. They call it a mountain in Japan). Which means for a couple days I was essentially trapped in Ajimu. It did get a little bit boring. I was pretty happy to see the snow go away, because cabin fever was beginning to set in.
But all that being said, the snow was also quite beautiful. Since I couldn't leave my town, I took a few walks at night and watched the snow fall. It was very beautiful seeing the snow fall on the Japanese gardens. I wish you all could have seen it, I'm sure my words don't do it justice.
It reminded me of the final scene in "Kill Bill". As much as I had mixed feelings about that movie, that last scene with the snow in the Japanese Garden was visually brilliant. And that's what things looked like around here (or in the gardens at least). The ground was covered in white, with snow falling through the air illuminated by the street lights and landing on the bonsai trees.
To further appreciate the beauty (and to kill time because I couldn't drive anywhere) I walked up a temple on top of a hill. It was a bit sketchy climbing up the icy steps at night, but once I got to the top, it was really beautiful to see the snow falling on the temple. And from the hill I could see the city lights of Ajimu (um...such as they are).