Some serious snow shoveling!

Last weekend I was rejoicing over the lovely weather and the lack of snow in Kuji.

Well, our time has come.

I'm guessing that the landscape here looks about the same as it does in Indiana right now (minus the snow-covered mountains of course.)

It would have been a great weekend to finally try snowboarding, but that will still have to wait. Instead, I've spent the last two days doing indoor activities -- volunteering at a preschool; chatting on-line; cooking eggrolls and wontons with Mayla, Sean and Liz; watching movies; and singing karaoke. It's been grand.

But I did spend almost two hours outside today shoveling snow at church.

A team of about seven of us worked on "Operation Clear the Long Driveway and Big Parking Lot."

Here's the team at work, doing all the shoveling by hand (um, shovel) :)...

I promise that I was a valuable worker and didn't just take pictures of everyone else working!

Mayla shows off her muscles -- and just how deep the snow is. Takenori observes from the background.

This was the home stretch. The pastor thought it looked like Italy. I thought--and still think-- that it looks more like Great Britain than Italy. (Maybe because it's an island) This is the last part we did because Sean had drawn a smiling turnip (why? I really don't know) into the snow and made us shovel around it. So this picture is what's left of the smiling turnip inside...err..Italy. :)

Anyway, moving on...

We finally finished -- mission accomplished!

So what do you do after a successful mission in the snow?

You eat some hot food! Sean, Takenori and I went to a popular restaurant for ramen. I got their specialty, ramen with pork.

What a nice (and yummy) reward for hard work. :)