Snow and a (sorta) White Christmas

Before coming to Japan, I had seen snow once at Mt Bulla, in Victoria.  And I'm talking the light-floor-covering snow leftover a full month into Spring.  Imagine my delight then when one day in December while I was at school, it started snowing!

I didn't have class at the time and so was sitting at my desk in the staffroom as my teachers started calling me over to the window, "look, look Naomi-sensei, it's snowing." For a while I just stood there at the window mesmerised by the falling flakes, but then the kid inside me took over and I ran outside with my camera to stand in the snow and take pictures.  And what did I think of my first real encounter with snowing weather?  I thought it was bloody cold!

This is the view of the front oval, from the staffroom at one of my Elementary Schools.

This is the partially snow-covered courtyard playground at the same school.

Apparently it only snows in Awa City 5 or 6 times per winter, but when it does it's because the temperature has dropped significantly.  Having come from relatively mild winters (yes, even including the storm lashings that we lived through right opposite the beach during a St Kilda winter) I was in no way prepared for the briskness of a Japanese winter.  And in winter, Japan is cold everywhere, except bed!

A snowy farm yard nearby my apartment.

While it was snowing outside, for example, every student (and teacher) had to participate in 20-minutes of morning jogging and every classroom window at my school was inexplicably left open all day.  The staffroom was heated with an old-school kerosene heater, with my Primary School classrooms only running this kind of heating too.  My apartment, like many others, does not have insulation or carpet and so being at home was mostly freezing too.

I also experienced the joys of a frozen windscreen for the first time this winter and in trying to figure out how to deal with the problem, made myself late for school.

Luckily the snow doesn't stick for very long in Awa though and usually a half-day was all it took for the snow to melt away again.  There wasn't too much drama on the roads because of this, though I know some colleagues who live with the very real threat of becoming snowed in either at school or at home.

Waking up to see snow outside my apartment.

Half a day later, it's gone!

Despite the fact that I couldn't wipe the smile off my face every time it snowed in that first Japanese winter, celebrating Christmas in the cold hit me hard.  It was so strange to be rugging up and cooking a full roast dinner on December 25th.  I spent most of the day dreaming about summer dresses and cold beers, sausages on the barbecue and ice-cream cassata for dessert, paddling in the pool and passing out on the couch under the airconditioning!  I did crank my heaters up to the blisteringly hot setting and try pretending I was living an Aussie Christmas but it just wasn't the same!