I don't want to alarm anyone, but Tokyo is in a near state of Emergency after today's record snowfall. Beginning early this morning, the snow fell heavily all over the city, in some places drifting as high as 20 centimeters. Citizens are in a panic, with grocery stores reporting runs on seaweed and sake.
Recklessly ignoring the warnings of friends and my landlady, who hadn't seen such snow in decades, I braved the fierce storm, camera in hand, to consult on an old coworker's new web application. As I trudged through slush so deep it threatened to dampen my shoes, I was touched by the fierce determination of my fellow people as, bundled in down jackets 5 layers deep, they carefully brushed the snow into sewer gratings, or attempted to melt it away with hot water.
Far and away the best moment (which, sadly, I failed to shoot) was seeing a city bus proudly jingling by, its tires safely covered in brightly-colored, until-now unused chains, driving safely enough in the dangerous conditions that it was easily overtaken and passed by a little boy on his blue plastic bicycle.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
The Great Tokyo Blizzard of '08
Posted by Jeremy at 5:57 AM
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2 comments:
OH MY GOD!! Are you all right????
Oh no wait, i see that some brave citizen has saved you all by gathering up all the snow in the entire city and forming it into a midget snowman.
I think the snowman's nose is on backwards, though.
Was there a run on red bean pastries in Sugamo? I can imagine that the Venerable Old Japanese Women broke them out in case the drifts got past 24cm.
Cheers,
-Andrew
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