The year that New Year's wasn't.

Another late one. I do apologize, but the holiday has had me very busy (odd how that works out). Next week should be back to your regularly scheduled awful.

So, this is gonna be a long post. You might want to make yourself a snack. Maybe take an intermission in the middle or something. Just to give you an idea, I have 250 pictures from the last week to sort through... yeah, somehow I'm not looking forward to writing this post that much ><

This week has been... interesting. I only had two things planned, which suddenly morphed into about twelve things, then got reduced back down to about five. Yeah, it was pretty much like that. On Tuesday, I had another nabe party; this time with Tor, his wife (Takako), and her two friends (one of which used to be an AEON student at my school :D). No pictures, but it really just would have been more of the same. Finding the place was a little hard, but once again I was glad to have been a delivery driver for a year and a half; finding places isn't so hard anymore. At first, I was searching on the street behind the place for about ten minutes (Google Maps INSISTED the house was there and got mad it me if I went to a different street). It was a really creepy and dangerous street. Only half of it had street lights, and there was an old, abandoned shrine or something on the half that didn't. What's more, the road was tiny and the left side dropped directly into a very large canal. No guard rail or anything, just a six or so foot drop into shallow water and mud. Yeah, no lights + no guard rail + tiny road = holy crap I don't like that road. I practiced Japanese a little bit then stopped because I was embarrassed by how bad I was, talked to Tor about roleplaying games (apparently they're bigger than I thought in Europe. Especially live action stuff, but that's not really my thing), and was warned about the dangers of my high school girl and housewife students by Takako's friends (Apparently the high schoolers might only take the class to see the foreign teacher and housewives have too much time and money on their hands. Pretty sure they were just teasing me, but given my history with middle aged women being interested in me, I'm now scared). I also tried Umeshu (plum alchohol). It was really good. Overall, it was a great night, but the stupid weather rained on me on the way home :(

Wednesday I decided to take it easy, 'cause by then most of the rest of my week had also magically filled itself with holiday plans. My decision was apparently not allowed. While trying to deal with some errands, I ran into an issue with my phone that needed resolving. My co-worker, Yuko, was nice enough to spend almost three hours of her day driving me around town to get it fixed. We also went shopping, and she helped me get my tickets to visit Hiroshima (more on that later. Oh yes, A LOT more on that later). I'm really glad we stopped to go shopping, because she showed me a really cool little department store that I would never have found on my own. There are a bunch of nice shops there, and one that has a bunch of really "Japanesey" things (definitely gonna go there to buy presents for people).

Pretty much just took this picture for Heather. Was surprised to see they had anything Rainbow Brite there. Although, Yuko had no idea what it was, so maybe it's not very popular.

It's a Spanky Hook. Shaped like a heart. Yeah, "Bag Hanger", I'm sure.

So yeah, not many pictures there either. Beware there, for here be photo spam.

Thursday was the first day that I had plans that had been made before the start of the week. Sarah and Seiji had invited me to a small bounenkai (Year end party) at a curry place in town with their friends. Their friends turned out to be two couples, both of which had very young daughters (think one was two and a half and the other was 17 months). The two and a half year old had the most adorable sweater I have EVER seen. It was a monster. The hood was its head, and there were cloth teeth hanging from the top of the hood, so it looked like it was eating the kid when it was pulled up. Its tongue was also sticking out of the side of the hood. Adorable. The girl wearing the sweater was equally adorable. For example, when her dad's beer arrived and he wasn't paying attention, she pulled on his shirt and said "Tousan, douzo." ("Here, dad.") until he picked up his beer. She also quickly pulled her fork away from the 17 month old when she picked it up from the counter. At first, I thought she was just doing the "no, mine!" thing that kids do, but she then informed the younger girl in a very serious voice "abunai" ("dangerous"). She didn't want the little one to play with the fork 'cause she realized it wasn't safe. Best kid ever.

Food time! Let's see here... there was a sweet potato dumpling, some kind of fried dough, some cooked squid, random vegetables, pineapple, and tuna. I'll let you figure out which is which :P

Deer meat! I was very excited to add another kind of meat to my "animals I have eaten" list.

Horse meat! Once again, excited. They were both VERY rare though, the horse more so than the deer. So I'd like to try them again.

First time actually having curry. It was decent, but I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Keep those eyes open! This was in the bathroom. Terrifying nightmare fuel.

There was actually a bunch of stuff on the walls in the bathroom. Some was cool, but some... I think they just put random shit on the wall. Pretty sure this is a bug spray box.

So yeah, we stayed until a little past midnight, but the little ones were getting restless, so dinner wrapped up. Seiji, Sarah, and I, however, went to 5150, an Izakaya (bar) owned by Seiji and Sarah's friend that was at open mic night.

5150 has an awesome theme. Rock music (the owner loves rock), pirates,

and dragons. Yes, yes, and yes. Too bad it's expensive, otherwise I'd prolly go there pretty often.

This was in the bathroom. The Kama Sutra of Death. Interesting... Yes, that poster below it is "30 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Woman". XD There were also A LOT of naked pictures or mostly naked pictures of women. Figured I probably shouldn't take photos of those.

But yeah, I talked to the owner about music (his English wasn't great, but it was enough to have a limited conversation), mainly rock and what was popular in the US. The place actually got kind of busy. There was a group of people playing some kind of game with a huge, fuzzy die, but I couldn't figure out what it was. The owner also gave me some Okinawan alcohol free of charge and asked me to try it. He gave it to me in a shot glass, so I drank it like a shot and said it was really good (it was). Apparently he was really impressed by this, cause he gave me another one free of charge. Hey, I'm not complaining. Thus, Thursday night ended. I was really looking forward to the next few days. New Year's Eve and New Year's day would be great. I was going to go drinking with a friend I had met at Daniel's (my predecessor) going away party and her friend, then, in the morning, I was going to watch the sun rise from the top of Matsue Castle. I think I also had plans for later that day, but I can't remember. It doesn't matter though, cause Mother Nature decided to give a big ol' "fuck you and your plans" in the form of a nasty snowstorm.

I didn't even realize it was snowing at first. Woke up, took a shower, and was about to make breakfast when I looked at my window and thought to myself "why does it look like my window is covered in snow?" Not to spoil it for you, but the answer was "because that's what windows look like when they're covered in snow." I found this out when I opened it and almost got attacked by a mini avalanche. After dealing with that, I saw the neighboring apartment complex looking like this.

Then looked over and saw the street looking like this.

Looking down my stairwell. This was the first of about a dozen times that I decided to walk outside with no shoes on. Why, you ask? Because I'm a fucking genius, that's why.

My "front yard". Pretty easy to tell which direction the wind was coming from. Poor telephone pole and tree.

Oh look, it's my bike! This is the first of a few "reference shots" I took, so feel free to marvel as I did at the accumulation of snow. I started taking pictures at about noon on Friday, so yeah.

I also used this car for reference, although apparently I didn't take as many pictures as I thought. Guess I was just using it for personal reference.

My bike a few hours later during one of the temporary lulls in the storm.

Me trying to get a decent example of how deep the snow was. That's about 3/4 of the way up to my knee. At around 4 PM on the day it started snowing... there was no snow at the start of the day. This was when I realized for sure I wasn't going to be able to make any of my plans that night. This also demonstrates one of the reasons why walking wasn't an option. I have no boots since Matsue isn't supposed to get this much snow (this year was record breaking. Like, "we haven't seen this much snow for almost a century" record breaking). Every time I took a step, my foot sunk into the snow and my shoes got filled with it. Not exactly conducive to walking around without frostbite.

Of course, that didn't stop me from trying. Cause I'm a genius. I knew I wasn't going to go drinking or anything like that, but I wanted to at least get to the konbini (convenience store) a few blocks from my place. I had almost no food and absolutely no alcohol, and it was New Year's Eve! I quickly found out that wasn't an option. The snow had gotten way deeper, and the other problem with walking showed up: since it was a snowSTORM, I couldn't really look up. If I did, wind and tiny crystals of frozen water began assaulting my unprotected vision orbs. That doesn't feel very good. Vision orbs are sensitive. This was about 8 PM.

So I retreated to my stairwell and took some pictures!

The snow was already beginning to fill in my tracks O.o

Since I had little food, most of which was rice, I decided to make some makeshift nachos. Really makeshift. Those aren't tortilla chips, they're week-old taco shells that were kinda stale. That's also not normal cheese, it's this weird pseudo-american-cheese-style stuff that they have over here. It's also on aluminum foil because I don't have a microwave, I have a toaster oven. Yes, that's right, I had taco crazy cheese toasted nachos for New Year's Eve dinner. Go me. They were decent at first, but the cheese hardened really fast. They weren't good after that.

A few hours later, footprints pretty much completely filled in.

Poor bike.

Saturday was pretty much completely filled with me sitting around doing nothing and being hungry. I had two bowls of rice left, so I had to kind of spread them out. It was still pretty much impossible to walk to the store. I didn't really take any pictures because, well, what's the point? By the end of the day, though, the snow had stopped falling.

Sunday morning, after the snow had melted a little. At its highest, it was actually almost up to the door handles on the car. I had to get food though, so I headed outside. Luckily, the roads had been cleared a bit just because people were driving on them. Main roads had been plowed, but side roads just had ruts from tires. I walked in them, as did dozens of other people. It seriously looked almost post-apocalyptic. People were huddled in coats and hats, some carrying their children, others dragging them along beside them, trudging down roads and making way for the occasional car. Other cars were trapped on the side of the road and abandoned, and everything was a mess. Yeah, Matsue wasn't ready for this.

The rice fields as viewed from the bridge on my way back from the store. Poor rice :(

The roads were apparently clear enough for my Christmas package to get through! Thanks mom and dad. PS - Only awesome people take pictures of their new camera with their iPhone.

Testing my new camera.

Night picture! :D

So yeah. All told, my best guess would be somewhere between 2-3 feet of snow. Mostly in one day. Fun stuff. Interesting/funny/sad notes:

1.) Totally saw a bird crash land into a snow covered roof cartoon-style at the beginning of the storm. There was a big poof of snow, then it got up and flew off a few seconds later. Fantastic.

2.) I'm utterly amazed by how many people couldn't figure out how to drive in the snow. I understand that this much is an anomaly, but they get at least a little every year. How is it that I know how to drive in the snow better than them? Roseville doesn't exactly get any. Yet, at least 4 times a day, I heard (then witnessed when I got curious and watched from my window) as someone tried to floor it in reverse to get out of the snow they were stuck in... thus digging themselves in even deeper. Even if that did get them out, they would have flown backward and smashed into something. People banded together to help them, but I wouldn't really have been able to communicate, and they all managed to get out eventually, so I just stayed as a spectator.

3.) Sirens. Nonstop. For three days. I shit you not.

4.) As I said, Matsue (Shimane in general) was not prepared for this. Four people died in an avalanche at Mt. Daisen. An old woman died when a pile of snow fell from her roof onto here and the ambulance took five hours to get there because of traffic. A train was caught on the rails for 42 hours without any assistance. The main highway was gridlocked with traffic because of a major accident combined with the snow. It's Tuesday as I write this, and some parts of Matsue still aren't really traversable. Ridiculous.

Okay, I'm taking a break. It's taken me 2 hours to write this much, primarily because the freaking site HATES uploading photos right now. Like 2-3 minutes per picture. Only one more day to talk about, but there's a lot of pictures for it. I'll post it later today.