Hello, Spring?

WHERE ARE YOU?!

Yesterday morning - Rob (wearing slippers!) scraping the snow off the car before I had to leave for work:


The weather so far has not failed to surprise me (or the Japanese people for that matter). As if to spite my praise of the glorious 20degC weather we had on the weekend, we had a cold snap. Literally. The next day, the temperature barely rose above 1degC and it even started snowing! Unbelievable, really. We'd even changed the snow tyres on our car to the ordinary tyres on Monday because we were unnecessarily wearing them out driving around with hardly any snow this winter.

It stopped snowing today, but there was more snow cover on the ground than yesterday. Just for fun and experience, I decided to ride to school today on my bicycle. I won't know until I try, and I can't always be afraid of the unknown, right? (The locals already see me as the 'crazy gaijin (foreigner), and it can't get worse than that, right?) Most of the snow had already melted so it wasn't really all that bad. Admittedly, I wouldn't do it if there was more snow because I don't have any snow tyres on my bike.

One of the teachers at school this morning asked how I liked the snowy scenery in spring. According to her, snow doesn't usually happen around this time. Even the insects are confused. After a few blissful months of not having to deal with bugs, Rob told me he'd caught (and released) a few bugs on the weekend. Not surprisingly, I don't see any around at the moment (where do they go?). Let's hope that is the last of the snow, and that we can enjoy Spring and hanami (flower-viewing) soon. Knowing our luck with weather, I'm sure I'll be posting under this tag quite regularly.


On another note, our location on this side of the Noto Peninsula allows us to sometimes enjoy breath-taking views of the mountains in the next prefecture Toyama across the Japan Sea. Why only sometimes? Well, I don't really know why. The locals often say that when you can see these mountains on a fine day, it WILL rain the next day. And that is true. The mountains are often visible on rainy days too. This shot was taken by Rob on Monday (at my request as I did not have my camera with me at school). Beautiful, isn't it? One of the teachers at school said that it was difficult to take a photo of these mountains, and that many tourists would come to this part of the Noto hoping to see the beautiful scene because it is a scene often printed in tour catalogs. I wish it was a view I could enjoy everyday, without the rainy forecast attached.