Post by Shadow on Jan 9, 2006 20:35:20 GMT -5
Japan's Hardy Snow Country Now Faces a Test of Time
New York Times
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
TSUNAN, Japan, Jan. 7 - After clambering out a second-story window on Saturday, Kimie Kuwahara, 80, stood atop the 10-foot-high wall of snow surrounding her house. She surveyed this region called the snow country - the starkly white mountain range that spread out in the distance behind her, the record snowfall that had blanketed all but the triangle-shaped roofs in her neighborhood.
Pushing a plowlike shovel with both hands, Ms. Kuwahara was busy clearing the fresh powder to a recessed pile several feet away under which, she swore, lay a pond with carp. Her husband, Naoji, also 80, had climbed a ladder onto the roof, where he deftly plied his shovel to send chunks tumbling down.
"It's a never-ending job!" said Ms. Kuwahara, who had left a "village on the other side of the mountain" to come to this town as a bride a half-century ago. "After you've cleared the snow, the place is covered with snow again two days later."
Smiling from ear to ear, Ms. Kuwahara, who maintained that snow-clearing had kept her the "fittest person in the neighborhood," said cheerfully: "Ah! The snow country! What can you do?"
The snow country, ensconced between the Sea of Japan and the Japanese Alps, is one of the world's snowiest regions and typically lies under a dozen feet of snow for several months a year. But the coldest winter in decades has brought record snowfalls to the region in recent weeks.
The snow has buried cars and houses and trifled with Japan's famed bullet trains. It has flanked plowed streets with 10-foot-high walls of snow and transformed towns into white labyrinths inside which human beings scurry as if they were mice.
New York Times
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
TSUNAN, Japan, Jan. 7 - After clambering out a second-story window on Saturday, Kimie Kuwahara, 80, stood atop the 10-foot-high wall of snow surrounding her house. She surveyed this region called the snow country - the starkly white mountain range that spread out in the distance behind her, the record snowfall that had blanketed all but the triangle-shaped roofs in her neighborhood.
Pushing a plowlike shovel with both hands, Ms. Kuwahara was busy clearing the fresh powder to a recessed pile several feet away under which, she swore, lay a pond with carp. Her husband, Naoji, also 80, had climbed a ladder onto the roof, where he deftly plied his shovel to send chunks tumbling down.
"It's a never-ending job!" said Ms. Kuwahara, who had left a "village on the other side of the mountain" to come to this town as a bride a half-century ago. "After you've cleared the snow, the place is covered with snow again two days later."
Smiling from ear to ear, Ms. Kuwahara, who maintained that snow-clearing had kept her the "fittest person in the neighborhood," said cheerfully: "Ah! The snow country! What can you do?"
The snow country, ensconced between the Sea of Japan and the Japanese Alps, is one of the world's snowiest regions and typically lies under a dozen feet of snow for several months a year. But the coldest winter in decades has brought record snowfalls to the region in recent weeks.
The snow has buried cars and houses and trifled with Japan's famed bullet trains. It has flanked plowed streets with 10-foot-high walls of snow and transformed towns into white labyrinths inside which human beings scurry as if they were mice.