1985/7 Japan

Snowy Kyoto
18 December 1985

Guess what? It has SNOWED. It started yesterday about lunch time and continued through the night. It is a white winter wonderland out there. Everything coated in the softest of flakes. At least a foot deep. This morning the sun came out and I dashed out with my camera to take photos of red berries in the snow, and pink blooms in the snow and icicles hanging from the trees. It has started to melt now. Apparently it is very unusual to get this much snow and to get it this early. We’re all hoping for a white Xmas. By the time you read this Xmas will be over and you’ll both have suntans!!

Good to talk to you on the phone last Friday. I’m sorry about the mess up with your gift. How did you get them to come down from R260 to R60? Is it possible that the amounts were doctored by the SA customs? Thank you for your present. Is the cash enough to wipe out my debt or do I still owe you?

On Sunday Mr Morimoto insisted on buying me a new pair of shoes – for Xmas he said. He sent me out with two students and $100!!! To a nearby shoe store. My shoes were ‘too well ventilated’ for the winter, he said. (They were too. Holes at all the toes and the left sole split all the way through and almost all the way across the ball of my foot.) Anyway – I certainly wasn’t prepared to spend that much, but did get a good pair of track shoes for $25. Just in time for the snow. Also on Sunday one of my students offered to lend me a kerosene heater for the winter. Just in time for the snow too.

For some obscure reason Kato-san gave me another jacket. It is beautifully lined and of the type worn over kimonos in the winter. She doesn’t speak any English so we can’t communicate at all, but she seems to like me for some reason. I give her flowers every week.

Yesterday Tracey found a ‘gommy pile’ near here. When the Japanese are tired of their furniture they pitch it out into the street where it may be picked up by anyone in need. Usually other Japanese people won’t go near a gommy and so it is the foreigners who benefit. I picked up an almost new set of shelves and carted them back to my room – there to arrange my Ikebana and books and Xmas card on them.

So – it has been a week of acquiring new goodies. Goody.

Mr M informed me on Friday that the school would be CLOSING for two weeks over Xmas and the New Year. Quite a financial shock to me. I have decided to cash in my ticket to Hong Kong so that I can pay my key money. I want to go to a snow festival in Sapporo – on Hokkaido, the northernmost island – in February. That is going to be very expensive. I have considered your offer of a loan, dad, but you would have to lend me a hell of a lot of money before it is worth anything to me here. The yen being even stronger than the dollar. So no thanks – at the moment.

I used holly and red and pink carnations and ferns – dried and dyed white – for my arrangement this week. It’s very pretty and Xmasy!

That’s all folks!
Lotsaluv
Gail