Dumpelstiltzkin

Aside from growing delicious rice, Chieko's home town is famous for getting a silly amount of snow. I've mentioned it before. When I came here for the first time, Chieko was trying to point out various landmarks (like her elementry school), but we couldn't see anything because of the wall of snow on either side of the road. Literally. I'd never seen anything like it in terms of snow. When we were here for New Year's a year ago, there was an unusually small amount of snow, and in general last year was a bit of a bust. This year has been different. It's been snowing since we arrived on Monday. When I say snowing, I don't mean flurries; it's been DUMPING snow, non-stop, for three days. The house trembles from time to time as the most recently liberated sheet cascades off the roof onto the small mountain of snow that has quickly risen up before it.
The snow here is not light. There's no champaign powder here. It's all laden with the water it sucked up off of the ocean on it's way here. The weather then slams into the mountains, and there it sits while every drop of frozen precipitation is squeezed out of it. And thus, it's been snowing heavily for three days, and it's not going stop any time soon.
So it was an opportune time to jump back on a snowboard for the first time in nearly 4 years. Lots of padding for the falls, though fortunately there weren't many. The mountain we went to is just a 5 minute drive from the house here, and while it's a very small affair, it certainly served it's purpose today.
I mentioned before about snowboards being really expensive here and that I may just rent this season. That's what I did today, and while the board I rented was comical, it served it's purpose so I can't complain. I will say that the place I rented from had quite an interesting array of boards to choose from, including some stuff that I remember drooling over back when I was in high school.




Things are winding down here at the Iguchi farm. Most have retired for the night after a boisterous few hours of karaoke singing on the family TV. It's quite an experience to spend a few days surrounded by children aged around 6, 3, and less than a year.
Chieko and I are heading back to Kanazawa tomorrow, most likely in the snow. We'll have a few days to relinquish our lives, and then it's back to the grind.