Another Night in the Snow

I very much have a favourite among these pictures, but I would be interested to know which of them you find most appealing.  I can't really put my finger on why I like this particular one the most, but it certainly jumps out at me as being the best - there's simply no competition!  These are in no particular order (beyond that determined by blogger) so I hope the sequence doesn't prejudice the results.

So there was another snow event in the Tokyo area (snow event as in weather event, as is all the rage to say nowadays).  I was originally going to wait until the next day to take these pictures, but it started raining around 11PM and showed no signs of letting up.  This would have meant losing the snow, but it also gave a unique opportunity because wet snow has several interesting properties.  One such property is the magnificent roundness everything seems to possess when it gets wet.  I can't really explain this phenomenon, but upon seeing the pictures it was obvious that the flowing curves were missing from my previous set of pictures.  Again, I can't really explain it, but I think you'll see what I mean when you compare these ones to last weeks video.
The rain also had another side effect; that of making the snow exceptionally difficult to navigate.  It became increasingly arduous to maintain balance while walking because the snow wasn't solidifying underfoot.  It became a layer of snow on top of a layer of ice, and even when the ground underneath wasn't frozen over, the snow itself would turn to mush and give way far too easily.  It wasn't as idyllic to walk through as the pictures make it appear.

Having said that, the snow looks particularly snowy because of the rain, so I'm not complaining too much.  When you have buckets of snow it can sometimes look fake.  It tends to look like a blanket, in that the effect is of someone throwing a textured duvet over a surface and being done with it.  The rain really changes the texture into something far more snowy (to look at, at least).


It's absolutely fine to think I'm mad for walking around in the snow until 4AM (truth be told, my battery ran out at 2.30 but I got lost) just to take a few pictures.  I probably am.  Oh well.

Barakiyama Myoukouji

So this is a local temple - the name being that of the title.

I took an awful lot of pictures but only a few came out worth the time to view.  Obviously I took them in colour, but for some reason I can't stop making them black and white.  I think they look infinitely better.

This first one is absolutely my favourite.  It's one of my favourite pictures full stop; although the few people that have seen it are only lukewarm towards it.

Both of these pictures are of the same statue, the drinking/cleansing fountain at the entrance to all Japanese temples tend to have an interesting ornament, often somehow including the water itself (a fountain head, for example).

I've been to this place a couple of times and there are always fresh flowers at the entrance.  The one downside of black and white is that you can't see colour; amazingly enough.  Not so great with flowers.

As a side-note, it snowed the other day so I made a little video.

Zetsubun

Happy Chinese new year!

So it's Chinese new year which means a lot of people (really, an awful lot) are having holidays right now. Being in the workaholics country of choice that means of course we will not have a holiday, but we do get to throw beans around.

The long remembered of you may recall that this is the time of year during which people throw beans out of the windows and doors of the house to scare away devils. Or rather, THE devil. Obviously, this is more of a tradition passed down to children (young children) so naturally I was privy to a demonstration this year. And last year. And the year before.

But what the hey, at least I got to eat some nuts (which I don't really like but it's free food so...)

Anyway, in less bizarre news, I went to a shrine over the weekend. I took a few pictures, which will arrive upon ye blog at some point in the future - probably within the week.

In more disgusting news, today is the day of incredible disease (obviously people didn't throw their nuts out of the window hard enough) because one of my 8 classes today (tiny little kids, so only 25 minutes per class) had nine people absent, the others all had at least one. I also have a cold. AND ONE LITTLE TREASURE VOMITED IN MY CLASSROOM. What in the world was he drinking last night.