We've had an early blizzard here, dumping more than three feet of snow in some places. I've never seen anything like it! Everything is totally covered. Walking down streets is like a bizarre dream - lumps of strange shapes and sizes rise out of the snow, trees and ditches are glutted with huge globs of white. Roadsides are lined with massive walls of snow taller than my head... what do you think??



Snow, snow, and snow!

It began to fall yesterday evening, and during the night snow accumulated to about five feet. It was piled on top of cars, completely covering everything. I've never seen anything like it!

This morning it was still snowing lightly, so while Heidi was having a women's class in the apartment, I decided to get out a bit. I did the unthinkable: I dressed for snow and went outside, to the local park, for a walk. There was nobody out "walking"... obviously during the end of a blizzard isn't a good time for a stroll, but I needed to have some rest and the solace of nature. So went, carrying nothing but my camera plus some writing paper and a pen.

The park was completely choked with snow - it was so deep that it was even impossible to walk through unless a path had been made first. It stretched across the empty field like a white canvas that someone had elevated - showing only tips of takenoko (bamboo shrubs) and small trees.

I found a spot under a little covered shelter and just sat there, in absolutely solitude - the only soul for what seemed miles. It was great. I listened to the tiny "clink-clink" of snowflakes as they hit my down jacket (they do make a sound), and then noticed how the extreme cold began to leak slowly through the openings - where my sleeves met my gloves, for example, or around the collar of my coat. I sat and wrote, listened, watched the white continue to fall, and then got cold enough to leave.

I was just about to leave when I was greeted by a construction crew, wading through waist-deep snow on their way to their parked cars for lunch. I don't know who was more surprised - them or me! After all, it isn't every day you see a white foreign girl in the park in the middle of a blizzard...