Let it snow, let it snow...

(Customary apology about extreme writing slackness)
It is snowing muchly. I woke up and refused to get out of bed until it was far too late and then looked out the window and got back into bed. Everything was covered in a thin layer of whiteness. I managed to get ready at great speed which kept me from being snap frozen in my drafty apartment and now I am at work and it is really coming down. So much extremely exciting snow.
I haven't seen snow like this since the German times!
It will be a very white Christmas if this keeps up. (Though I will be in Korea for Christmas where it is much colder than here.)
I went to Hiroshima in November which was awesome. It was a flying visit, I got in late Friday night and left early Sunday morning but fitted a lot in to my Saturday. We got up early and went to Miajima to see the famous gates in the sea. I was attacked by many scary wee deer when I touristishiously bought some food for them. The man yelled at me to get away from the food stall after they looked rampagious.
In the afternoon I shop-shop-shopped (and bought a T-shirt with the baffling slogan "Stupid people shouldn't breed. The president Clinton is a two-timer" surprisingly good English actually) then did the serious stuff.
It was difficult to stop the tourist holiday whirlwind to really see what is and was in the peace park and peace museum. I want to do it again at a slower pace now that I know what there is to see and contemplate.
Life on the island keeps on as usual. I am starting to get invites to a few more events here and there. Last Sunday I went to a mochi naku. When a family moves into a new house it is customary to throw mochi (a kind of rice cake) from the roof. Four big mochi with money in them are thrown from the four corners of the house and little ones with 100￥ in them and chucked all over the place. It was a lovely morning and the villagers, grandmothers and children alike were chatting happily and politely and there was much bowing... but as soon as that first mochi hit the ground they went nuts! I sustained a big red scratch on my hand from a particularly zealous Grandma when I reached through a bush for a mochi baggy. Very scary. I also copped a mochi in the eye and got a nice red bump. But they are delicious! I still have plenty because that afternoon I went to a mochi festival at one of my primary schools (paying for my own taxis bites! I was a $40 meal of mochi!) and they gave me a bag of them to take home instead of the Donna-unfriendly cookies they had baked.
This weekend just gone I played soft volley-ball on the Friday and then went to Karoke with the people from work. I didn't realise how frightening Bohemian Rhapsody would be if you had never heard it before. Hehem.
Final news is that I have been driving myself (and those unfortunate enough to be in ear- and mail-shot) insane trying to decide about what I'm to do next. If I want to transfer off the island for next year I have to hand over the transfer papers today. BUT in the beautiful way of Japanese bureaucracy I don't actually have to decide if I'm staying until February. So it is a matter of IF I stay, where will I stay. By the next time I write I guess I will have decided... by then end of today I will have decided one way or the other... what a frightening thought!