yuki ga arimasu

So it's been snowing now for two days in a row. It melts, basically, as soon as it hits the ground, but it's causing quite a stir nevertheless. Japanese people do not seem to like to drive in it, or be outside in it. That doesn't stop the elementary school children, bare-legged in the shorts their school uniforms require, from rolling around in it, gleefully manufacturing giant snow balls and lobbing them at one another's heads, however. A phrase you often hear from teachers talking about elementary or junior high students here, who are required to wear these ridiculous shorts no matter what the weather, is "They don't feel the cold." I find this hard to believe. But yesterday, on my way home from work, I saw at least eight children playing, and even sitting, in the snow. Yes, Canada's cold, but we don't go outside with bare limbs, thank you very much.

Not much is new. Kerri arrives on Saturday, and we're going to take a few excursions (to Nagasaki and Kumamoto city for sure), so I'm looking forward to that. Otherwise, I've been knitting in the evenings while watching more than-can-be-healthy amounts of terrible old movies. I went for a hike on Sunday. It was a bit depressing, though, because almost all the way up the mountain we walked up a paved road, and a lot of clear cutting had been done in the area. Beautiful view from the top, though.

I've figured out, finally, how to listen to foreign radio here. Here's a link to an interview with James Hetfield, of Metallica, from NPR. It's quite interesting, and amusing. This guy, who's struggled with some pretty hardcore rage issues all of his life, hired a therapist to sit in on the band's rehearsals, and helped them stay together. It's interesting to hear the same guy I often in my adolescence heard growling "exit light, enter night, take me hand, off the never never land" use phrases, when talking to other band members, like "What I'm hearing is that you're a little angry."