A LOT HAS HAPPENED since the last post, but mainly in the form of snow so apologies now if I have overdosed with too many pics of the white stuff !
First up we toasted in the New Year with a traditional brekkie ( O-sechi ryori ) consisting of, among other things, dried cod’s roe, black sweet beans and toasted whitebait, and downed with Otoso which is like a very sweet dessert wine. These are said to bring you good health and prosperity for the coming year. Funny that, in Scotland we we are given a lump of coal , some shortbread and a bottle of whisky!
We visited the local shrine to pay our first respects….
Interesting to see all the houses adorn their festive offerings outside their front doors
THEN IT SNOWED
this is part of the roof and although it may look pretty, 1sq metre of 60cm snow equals 120kg and the roof on the main house is 50 sq metres (6 tons) thats a lot of weight for the old beams to hold up. You hear so often , particularly with old people, so many deaths either they fall off the roof cleaning or are caught underneath the snow.
uninhabitated dog house….
good to see the builder make it in….
shit, lost the keys
oooops, not ours.
Kyoto bus
A bit of night skiing
a quick before and after shot
and finally a quick salute from BOSS
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Lovely to hear from you and Keiko and BOSS. Nice to hear that you are coping with the snow. We are certainly not coping with the heat here. Found a red belly black snake sunning himself under the clothesline yesterday. Guess we will just have to wear dirty clothes. Haha. Look after yourselves, luv Annie
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That’s a lot of snow, Simon! We’ve had quite a bit of snow in New York, but no more than about six inches at a time and the weather has warmed up between each snowstorm so that, by the time the next snowstorm arrives, all the snow that fell previously has melted away. Also, the city here is long used to dealing with heavy snow and they have fleets of lorries with snow-ploughs and salt that go up and down the city’s major streets all night after a snowfall, so vehicular traffic isn’t affected much for long. On the side streets, however, when the cars get snowed in, they can be deeply covered in snow and snowed in for days.
The worst part of the snowstorms here can be the hazards they create for pedestrians, because the snow-ploughs pile up huge walls of snow lining the sides of the streets and often they are so high that you can’t get across them except on tiny paths at the street corners, created by many people crossing the line of snow. Then when the weather gets warmer the snow turns to a slushy mess of dirty water, deep enough in the potholes at the street corners to completely soak your feet unless you are wearing heavy boots. Snow in New York doesn’t remain white and pristine for very long, except on the terrace of our apartment!
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