…Really!

 So… “it” started yesterday. “It” is what I would like to refer to as, the apocalypse. I was walking home from work, but the wind was so strong that I could barely keep my footing. Little did I know, it would get worse. I in the past two nights, we’ve gotten 10 centimeters of snow within the course of an evening. This morning, I was surprised to walk out of my door to find the hallway near the exit of my apartment building plastered in snow. The wind and blown the door open in the night and showered the inside wall with the equivalent of a paintball-gun shootout – except frozen. I went outside in my boots and trudged off to work with almost no visibility in a complete white-out. The wind and snow were nailing me in the face the whole way there. When I came in to the office, one co-worker who was near my locker taking off his boots greeted me with “Oh! Sugoi!” (oh! wow!) upon seeing my matted hair and wet face. I went on to learn that a number of schools had been closed due to inclimate weather. Then… the walk home was the WORST! We have a good 2 feet of snow that has been on the ground since it fell. It’s packed down tight, so people just walk on top of it. On the way home, I tried to walk on top of it as usual, but to my surprise, i fell through. I got stuck in one spot, waist-deep! The wind had been blowing the powder so hard all day that some areas had solid snow, and others only appeared to have solid snow underneath. Instead, they were the remnants of snowbanks and layers of snow that had blown off of roofs. Buildings all over the city were plastered in snow all on the sides where the wind had slammed piles of snow into them with suck force that it stuck. As I walked between buildings, aside from the struggle through deep snow in some areas, I was mostly OK. But, when I came to intersections of the streets, where there was open space and no buildings to block anything, it was basically just a wind tunnel. I couldn’t keep my footing at all. I’m guessing the winds were at least 60mph, and on ice, it was just impossible. It got knocked down 3 times on what is usually just a short 5 minute walk home.

Needless to say… I’m in for the night! That’s enough of that. I’ll be camped out in front ofmy heater until the blizzard moves on out of here!! Tomorrow I have to teach at Wakkanai KouKou though… and it is up a NOTORIOUSLY steep and icey hill. That walk ought to be interesting…. I think I may need climbing gear.