John Stupart.com

#1: It’s Awesome

Yes it truly is. Aside from making everything look completely different, it makes your surroundings so wonderfully quiet. Going to sleep to the sound of absolute silence is a sublime experience in itself.

The powdery stuff that falls in Hokkaido is also not as… wet, for lack of a better description. I can jump around in the stuff and avoid total freezing wetness of doom by simply shaking the powder off. Sure it’s cold as hell if you touch it with bare skin, but who’s that dumb. Pshh, it’s not like I’d try and make a snowball with my bare hands or anything…

#2 Snowballs!

I have been told time and time again from numerous sources that this snow is no good for making snowballs. And this, I can safely say, is utter rubbish! Instead of horsing around in the school gyms during breaks, I now gear up and begin epic wars of snowball battle against the students. Simple physics insist that, if you compact the snow enough, it will harden into ice and thus become a projectile to be used in deadly combat. And I must say I derive a pleasure from snowball fights that I don’t think I’ve enjoyed since I was but a wee lad, riding my bike and pulling faces. Sometimes I can’t believe I get paid for this!

#3 Creature Comforts

Having an ambient temperature below zero degrees outside means one enjoys the warmth of indoors all the more. I have a newfound respect for my apartment’s kerosene heater, as well as for the packets of Aero and Swiss Miss hot chocolate I have picked up. The only thing missing is a wood fire. But I think a fire in these tight residential areas would be rather… calamitous!

Also my fleece blankets, long Johns (get it? Long Johns? Oh nevermind) and new arctic jacket of doom are all wonderful clothing items that I never previously needed in Durban’s sweltering heat.

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Put simply I still love this snowiness. Perhaps it’ll wear off soon enough though. To be certain, having my car doors frozen shut in the morning was… irksome, and trying to pry open a door in sub-zero temperature, while you begin running late for work is frustrating, but with a little lubricant on the seals I can sort that out. It’s simply due to inexperience rather than winter being ‘bad’. Much like wearing sunscreen in summer, it’s just something you learn to do after burning yourself beet red.

Sure many say ‘but it’s so cold! And miserable!’ and to that I quote somebody I overheard in Jo’burg’s comparatively mild winter:

‘There are two kinds of cold people in this world: Poor people and stupid people’

And that, pretty much, is the gist of it. Needless to say, I won’t be making snowballs with my bare hands again anytime soon!

They really are! It’s been snowing once or twice a week for a month now, but today I woke up to the first snowfall that actually STUCK to the ground. “Big whoop” I hear you mutter. Well for someone who grew up in Durban, this is a big whoop! The whoop is so big, in fact, that I spent most of my work day simply staring out of the window at the office, craning my neck to impossible angles so I can see giant snowflakes swishing about.

I had to maintain an air of professionalism, of course. So I didn’t quite sprint out and throw snowballs at the kids. But They’d best be on their guard, because soon this Gaijin will enact Western-styled aggression fueled by a snowball arms-race and cold war-esque escalations of firepower.

Soon my pretties… soon.

I’ve ranted before about how damned confusing the road system here can be for a foreigner, but something more interesting than mundane Kanji signs is the strategies of driving over the speed limit (60 or 70 km/h) while still remaining immune from prosecution.

The speed traps don’t work anything like SA, in that in order to be fined, the Japanese authorities need a picture of your face at the wheel of the car. What’s more, stationary speed cameras are mounted on giant overhead steel girder-like constructs, preceded by at least 3 giant yellow signs warning of the impending speed trap. And it’s understandable. The penalties for speeding are harsh. Anything over 30 km/h will require a visit to court to have your fine determined by a judge, while anything 40km/h over the limit can lead to prison time. Scary indeed…

… Of course that’s in theory. In practice, everyone drives at least 20km/h over the limit, and the police don’t even bat an eyelid. I guess they’re busy harassing Russians (and are probably justified in doing so!) What this results in is a rather curious game of ‘follow-the-leader’ with the lead car on the highway forging the way ahead.

So basically it’s of the highest interest to be trailing behind the lead car, who is usually going a goodly speed, because, should a speed camera or even a police car in the bushes be trapping the road, it is only the lead car that will be prosecuted, as it’s kinda hard to snap pictures of the drivers behind him or her in quick succession. Great times! But it gets more complicated than that.

I find that often cars in the lead will slow down enough to make you overtake them, and they thus accelerate behind you in a cunning feint. I’ve since learned to do this myself, as it can lead to catapulting  ahead the draconian speed laws. Slow down enough to frustrate the tailing car to overtake you, and then accelerate behind them for a good ride at speed.

Of course the police know this as well, and apparently use undercover cars to do the same tactic to lure unsuspecting motorists into breaking the law. It seems a bit ruthless for the police to actively encourage motorists to break the speed limit just so they can catch them, but I guess it yields results!

What this likewise means is that often you find a long gaggle of cars tailing behind the lead on the suspicion that the rather nondescript leader might be a police car. Given that many motorists deck their cars out with 22 inch rims, dvd screens and giant aerial arrays on their rooves, whereas the police/govt cars are plain old skedonks, it takes a while for someone to overtake them. Of course, when the first car in line does so and isn’t arrested, a flood of overtaking ensues, with a new leader and a reset of the pieces on what can only be described at road chess.

And driving on the speed limit is, ironically, often more dangerous, as I have countless times encountered cars who woosh past me at almost twice my speed, resulting in reckless countermeasures from both myself and the moonbat who overtook me. In Japan, on either engages in this elegant dance of give and take, or risk being impaled by one of the many giant SUV’s roaming the Hokkaido road network.