"Oh the weather outside is frightful..."

Just when I thought it might be safe to put away the winter gear, this happened...

SNOW. Lots of it.

It started Tuesday night and continued all day yesterday, coloring everything completely white. This includes the roads, which were in a terrible slushy condition. Schools back home would definitely have been closed, but not the schools here. Nope.

After digging my car out of the snow, it took me about 45 minutes to drive to Yamane Jr. High School (pictured above), which is normally a 25-minute drive.

Even though the roads were a pain, I'm glad that school wasn't cancelled because it was my final day to teach the san nensei (9th grade) students. I'll see them for the last time this Saturday at the graduation ceremony. It's hard to believe that spring vacation (the vacation between school years in Japan) starts in a couple of days; it feels more like winter vacation!

In my classes yesterday, we talked about the unbelievable snow that seemed to just hit out of nowhere. We also talked about the differences between a Japanese snowman (called a yukidaruma) and an American snowman.

One day a few weeks ago, (note the clear sky and clear road) I saw a giant yukidaruma. As a sidenote, a yukidaruma usually has a bucket hat, but I guess there isn't one big enough for this guy!

Back to pictures from yesterday...

At the end of the day, I helped Nate dig his car out of the parking lot at City Hall, which took us quite a while...

A crew from City Hall was also out shoveling.

This is the ramen shop beside my apartment building. Check out the crazy amount of accumulation; we got a foot of snow in one day!

Immediately after taking the above photo, I went inside my apartment, put on my fleece jammies, curled up under my electric blanket and stayed there. :)