The K Experience

Winter in Japan

Past - Japan

Wednesday, 14 January 2009

"How many seasons does your country have?" was a question I would often be asked by the Japanese people I would meet, while I was in Japan. "Well...em...four, like every other damn country in the world!" I would answer. I would never say the last part, but I would always think it. And now I've lived in a few more countries, I have come to realise that it was extremely ignorant of me to do so. Spring, summer, autumn (Fall for you Americans out there) and winter had their very distinct climates and winter turned out to be one of my favourites...

Up until I moved to Japan, I had only been to a few countries (not including my initial move in life from Ghana to UK), and never for long enough to experience changes in season. Home at that point was England, where in the spring it rained, in the summer it rained, in the autumn it rained, and in the winter it was freezing cold and it rained (maybe a bit of snow). Yea, we had four seasons, and it rained in every one of them. There were slight changes in weather, like spring and summer were warmer than autumn and winter, but not much. It wasn't until I had moved away from Japan, and lived in a few other places that I realised "Damn, there really are four seasons in Japan". In Ghana, there's a rainy season, and a not so rainy season, in LA, California, there's sun, sun and more lovely sun, all year round (cold a bit during winter). But for Japan, Spring has moderate weather, and Sakura blooming; Summer is scorching hot and humid; autumn has the leaves drastically changing colour, and rain; and winter, well check out the pictures.

Apparently, 2003/2004 was a moderate year for snow, but quite frankly I had never seen so much snow in my life. I had just come back from a 3 day skiing trip with a few friends in Fukumitsu, from the 2nd to the 4th of Jan, where there had not been much snow. But on the 5th, the first day of school, the snow machines in the sky turned to full power and it started to land and settle with force.

I think for the first day of the downpour, the buses were severely delayed, but that was it. After that everything was back to running like clockwork, including school. There was no snow day this year in Toyama. One days worth of snow, or actually the 6 or so hours at school was more than enough to block the cars in ,which meant that the teachers had to dig out their cars everyday.

Or they could get the students to do it for them. Yes, in the picture you can see one of the female students wearing her skirt, with no leggings. They make em tough in Toyama! (or stupid, but this girl happened to be one of my favourite students, so she was tough, the others were stupid).

I had never really enjoyed playing in the snow when I was younger. It was always far too cold, and for someone who naturally had poor circulation in their hands and feet, it generally wasn't for me. Until this very winter. I had gloves from my previous skiing trip, and had bought myself some big old snow boots, and some super thick socks, and for the first few days of snow, I made sure that I went to the park to check out what it was like. It was one of the most fun things I had every done. The snow was at least a foot thick everywhere, as you can see from my foot print (above left pic). I even attempted to make a snow woman (a feeble attempt) which I named Yuki, (Japanese for snow :)). The picture on the right is of the parking garage under my apartment. I have no idea how all the snow managed to get under there, but it did somehow. Must have been magic.

Just to get a good idea of what the snow did to this beautiful city, I have put some pictures here in comparison. The first set is the view from the front of Futagami Technical High, the school I taught at, with a view facing the city.

This is a view of the school from about a few 100 meters away. The school is the tallest building in the distance.

This is a view of the Daily Yamazaki, the convenience store near the school.

This is a view of Mount Futagami, the mountain with two peaks.

Lastly, this is a picture of one of the entrances of Kojo Park, which was a few meters away from my apartment. The snow made a stark difference. If it wasn't for the little hints of colour in some of the pictures, one could easily mistake them as being black and white. Whatever the case, it was beautiful, and just added to the whole experience of living in Japan, the country with four seasons.

Check out the other pictures in the gallery