Snow Lanterns in Hirosaki Park

Apologies for the immense whiteness of these - hope you can make out what they are though...

The Aomori-est Snow Lantern 

Snowy moat 

Igloo! Or Kamakura, in Japan.  

It's not easy to see in the light but there are tiny snow lanterns lined up under the trees  

Hirosaki Castle in the snow - one of my favourite single things in Japan!  

My New Pet

Is it a mouse...? Is it an egg...? No, it's my NEW KEITAI woooohoo! How cute? Am I a bad superficial person for getting so excited about a pretty piece of phone equipment? Actually though it was one of the cheapest models they had, and it was FREE because I'd been using my old one for soooo long, so maybe I will be forgiven. It is very cute though. It has a movie camera and it talks too, which is exciting - tells me the time and things when looking is too much effort! And the best thing - it matches Sophie (the laptop). Could life be any better? Still no name for it yet though, answers on a blank postcard please...

Sick to the back teeth....

...of snow! Seriously! I am sick of shoveling it, driving through it, wearing it, falling in it... somebody please make spring come?!
OK so it's not all THAT bad and I know this is making up for the longing I had as a kid for properly snowy winters - it all seems so much more romantic when you have a dad to dig the path and a warm house to come home to I guess! It has its beautiful side, as you'll be able to see when I post the pics from the Snow-Lantern festival in Hirosaki. Am SURE we didn't have this much last year!! But hey next year I'll be back in rainy England missing it, I guess. The grass is always, well, whiter, and all that.

Last Friday we had an Eikaiwa social - a Valentine-themed Chocolate Fondue Party (-a rather gloriously invented Western Tradition). It was really good actually, we had cheese fondue as well just to add variety, and it turned out really yummy - certainly more palatable than the Halloween fish-orange stew anyway. My abiding memory is of two-year-old Mitsuki, the daughter of two of my students, breaking into the stash of chocolate before anyone got around to fondue-ing it - there was this glorious moment just before all the "grown-ups" realised what she was up to, and the picture of her delighted face while biting a huge chunk off a giant bar of Ghana Milk while the rest of it melted to her sticky little hand was just priceless. We were lucky there was any left for the rest of us... :)

Erm, Snowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Woke up this morning (finally, having overslept by an hour and a half :P) to find the heaviest snowfall of the year filling my nicely dug path down the garden. It was literally knee-deep over night, I can't imagine how the guys further inland even made it out of the house this morning. Well I was late so I bounced through the powder, got to the top of the slope, could barely see the car and was *shocked* to find that my nice bulldozer friend hadn't come to clear the road... managed to get the car door open but couldn't close it again, drove the car like a foot before wedging it firmly into the snow, had to dig a way out onto the main road but luckily after about half an hour one of my teachers from the other school drove past and took pity on me. He is my new official hero! Just as well I had no lessons today though!


Things have been feeling a bit weird recently... I'm not sure quite how to express what's going on but I'm sorry if I haven't really been myself or seemed a bit out of it. Something tells me the best thing to do is just forget about it and stop trying to analyse everything but ugh... I thought this whole living abroad thing was supposed to help me "find myself" -!!

Been having some great winter skies recently - when the clouds actually part it's glorious. This was at school yesterday afternoon. 

- and one from last night 

One of the clouds over the village this morning 

Toyu x Teiden = Tanoshikunai!

Well well well, hasn't this week been full of fun and games? Last Thursday night my heater decided to turn itself off, and in place of the friendly "I'm maintaining the temperature you asked for" numbers, displayed the cryptic message "EE06". Uh oh. Which one is 06? Surely it can't mean I'm out of Toyu (Kerosene) already? Better check just in case. Better check "just in case" means vaulting over the wall of snow (possibly the most fun I've had all winter!!), wading a few meters, and straining to find that the 280 litre tank that I'd had filled at New Year was COMPLETELY empty, yup, not a sausage - how did this happen!?! So I then had to dig a path through the snow I'd just waded, for the nice Kerosene-truck-men, but of course there was no chance of them coming until the next day which meant a particularly chilly night, and a shower at Bridget's in the morning. On Friday it was all sorted out, the kerosene came, and neither the stove nor the water boiler got air in, which meant the office didn't even have to know about my slight lapse of concentration. Evening came and that was the end of the first day.

Episode 2 happens early Monday, sometime before six. I am peacefully half asleep, hiding in bed listening to the heater warm itself up, when suddenly, for no reason, it stops. "EE07", it says. 07?! Never had 07 before! What the ----?! Must have been too dopey to notice the distinct lack of light from anywhere, because it wasn't until I got to the loo and the seat was cold that I realised we were having a power cut. Sure enough, no street light, in fact no light anywhere in the village... This went on for about 3 hours during which time I shoveled (one of the few things you can do with no candles in a powercut) and then went off for another refugee shower, this time generously arranged by the benevolent Mr. Speed of Ajigasawa. Was a bit worried by the pattern developing but luckily since then everything has been in working order (touch wood) and I finally got to have a shower in my own house on Tuesday. But like.... really. It was minus 4 driving back from Aji... of all the times to be without power! I am more convinced than ever that there are some places on Earth that people should just not try and inhabit...