After two months of complaining about either not getting snow or getting not enough snow to cancel school, I was forced to eat my words. There was still snow left on the ground from the week before when over a foot of it had made our trip home from Tohoku nearly impossible. Then Friday morning, it began. I woke up to the beautiful silence of a heavy snowfall. I looked outside and saw a couple of inches had fallen in the night. It was then I made the best decision of the day, I walked to school.
The snow didn’t stop. All day it fell. My teacher’s kept praising me for being a genius for walking. At first I brushed it off. Really it was no big deal I just didn’t want a repeat of Monday where it took two hours to get my car back into my spot. But as school was cancelled halfway through and the kids were walked home in the now blizzard I was so glad to have walked. All I could do was watch mesmerized from my desk as a few inches became a foot by noon and two by the time Kyoto-sensei finally told me I should go home. I waded home and found my car was partially buried already.
Then I curled up for the evening with a good book. Right before bed I looked out the window again. The snow was well past the doors of my car and still falling!
The next morning, my car was gone.
The snow was impossible comprehend. Like nothing I’d ever seen before. Sure, two years ago we had gone to Shirakawago where they boast seven feet of snow but that was over months of collecting. What we had in Yamanashi was a meter and a half of snow from a twenty-four hour blizzard! And the world was silent. No cars. No people. Just the soft sound of a few final snowflakes dusting the mountains that had once been our cars.
After breakfast I bundled up and hurried out to see what had become of the world. By then a few plows had come by so the snow in the middle of the road was only a foot deep but I had to wade through four feet of snow to get there. An announcement over the PA system forbid the use of private vehicles. Cars were abandoned in the middle of the street. The only sound was the wind. It felt like something out of a disaster movie. A few tractors were making dents in the sea of white but the most they’d been able to do was a cut a narrow path right down the middle of the road. When I encountered one, I had to wait for it to stop so I climb through the snow bank passed it. At the 7-11 I found a coffee but all the bread was sold out. Little did I know that was the last time I’d see milk until nearly a week later. I also bought this packaged muffin to feed the fish at my favourite shrine.
The main road from here was now only a single track where people had to take turns passing each other when they met. I took this all the way down to Shimoyoshida and saw the shrine. From the main entrance it would be impossible to enter. I’d have to wade a hundred meters through four feet of snow so I tried the other entrance. Again it was blocked by snow. Not to be put off this time, I climbed over a mountain only to find myself chest deep on the other side. I had no idea it was that hard to walk through snow! It was impossible to get farther than a few feet. A man looked over at me from where he was shoveling the way to his car and laughed.
“Doko made?” Where are you going to?
“Koko made.” Here.
I could get no farther. I was forced to turn around and go back to the main ‘road.’ Poor fish, hope they got food somehow. Exhausted by my efforts I tried to walk home a different route only to come across a waterfall of slush coming down the hill! I have no idea where it came from or how but old men in hip-waders were the only ones able to get through it. Muri.
So I turned back the way I came and spent the next hour totally over the novelty of our new snowy world. At home I curled up in bed and promised I would not leave again until the snow melted.
The proved to be impossible for the next day was the same. Still no cars were allowed to drive, not that I could as my car was a six feet under with no way to get to the road. But the good news was we got the next day off school! This turned into three days off school which eventually turned into an entire week as the city focused all its efforts on trying to get back on its feet.
It was then I realized I would have to go shopping. It was later I realized that a thousand people had thought the same thing and the combini was now at half-stock. In the next few days I’d realize that Yamanashi was cut off from the rest of the world. High up in the mountains with only a few ways in and out, all blocked because they are at snowy mountain passes, we were on our own. Yamanashi requested military help to dig us out and get food and water to isolated communities. Restaurants, supermarkets and combinis were unable to get fresh stock so supplies began to run low. On Wednesday I waited thirty minutes in line to battle hundreds of others for bread at the grocery store. It sold out in minutes. Still there was no milk or meat and the fruit and vegetables were starting to look a bit sad. It was really crazy to be living like that if even for a few days. For nearly a week I ate only instant pasta and frozen broccoli.
Finally by Thursday the trains were running and I could escape, even for a day, with Kevin to Tokyo. We had a fabulous snow-free day and ate at T.G.I.Fs. and had sakura lattes at Starbucks. Before heading home we both stopped up at a combini and bought milk and bread as there still wasn’t any in Yamanashi.
A week after the snow had first fell, life returned to normal but still mountains of snow are left at the sides of the road and in field. I will be surprised if it can melt before I head home in four weeks! When all is said and done this snow storm broke all the records. Never before, since they began keeping track in the 1800s, had this much snow fallen at one time.
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