A second wave of snow has just started to move through the area. Though from what I am reading on the news, it's not as bad as in North Carolina now. I wonder if these winter snow and ice storms in North Carolina are a new part of the climate there.

I am feeling a little better today, though I kept waking up all through the night last night. I was really disorientated and I kept thinking it was morning, even though it wasn't even close to morning. Hopefully today is my last day of feeling bad at all.

Finally the sun has come out this morning. Though they are predicting more snow tonight, I think it won't be too bothersome. We got about a foot and a half in total, I think. It seemed like it would never stop snowing at times.

I was sick starting on Saturday. I think I had a fever on Sunday, too. I got lots of sleep the whole weekend, though, so I feel a little better today. Tonight it will be plenty more rest, as well.

I found out today that my old shares of HAHT will be worthless under the new merger plan. However, my old CEO will get $2 million dollars, in addition to whatever money he will get from shares he owns. Kind of nice to see corporate abuses on a personal level. Luckily I didn't have many shares of stock at HAHT, so I am not losing very much at all. I knew it was a pretty risky investment when I took it.

Well, I have woken up to even more snow. It is quite beautiful, but it's making traveling very difficult for many people. I still see teachers coming in the door and it's an hour after school started. I hope Victoria's bus is not delayed for too long going to school. The weather forecast also is predicting snow all weekend, so it definitely looks to be a hibernation weekend, or skiing. However, since we just went skiing the last two weeks, I think this will be our break weekend. I asked them if they ever cancel school because of the snow. They told me it happened once in 1958, when they closed school for one or two days. I guess they aren't big on canceling snow.

Between 1 and 4pm today, we had a small blizzard come through Toyama. It snowed about 4 inches during that time period, and caused some serious driving hazards. I was quite lucky since I was able to walk home. Victoria was not quite so lucky. Her school is far enough away that she has to take a train there. At the end of the day, she arrived at the train station and was told that the trains were delayed to Toyama because of snow and ice problems. They said maybe it would be about an hour. That hour passed, and the message from the train counter was still the same. After awhile, she called me and told me about being stuck in the station. Later, she called to say that if she wasn't back by Friday evening, that I should start watching movies without her. At seven, the counter manager at the station got in his car and left, without leaving notice of when the next train would be. Victoria didn't see any trains going into Toyama, but did see several going out of Toyama. She called her school to tell them the problem, but they basically said tough luck and didn't offer to give her a lift into town, which is quite rude. I don't think she would've minded waiting, but she just wanted to know she could make it home. They did tell her the number for a taxi, so she called them and they said they could come in 40 minutes or so. Eventually one came and she made it home around 8:30. It took her nearly 4 hours and about 40 dollars to get home! She's going to put the taxi money on the transportation reimbursement form, since it was the only way for her to get home.

Anyway, the play for this weekend is hibernate and watch movies. Oh yeah, it's still snowing now, so tomorrow may be a bit of the same. I might even have to take the tram to elementary school if it doesn't clear up. I've never had to do that before.

Last Friday Victoria and I got invited to a dinner with some "delegates from Egypt and the U.S." We didn't know anything about the dinner, except the TCA invited us to it, it was free, and where it was. It turns out the delegates were all about 20-30, and were part of a Japanese program called the Ship for World Youth. I had never heard of this program before, but apparently every year the Japanese government decides a list of countries that it wants to improve relations with. Then it invites about 10-12 people from each country to have a free trip around the Pacific on a cruise ship. This year the countries included Egypt and the U.S., along with many others. They start in January and then end in March. Since they just started, they were in Tokyo for a bit, then the delegates went to different prefectures around Tokyo to do a two day home stay. Toyama just happened to be where the American and Egyptian delegations were sent to. The dinner served to introduce host families and the delegates. Anyway, it seems like a great program. Apparently only about 40 people applied in the U.S. last year, because it is not well known. It might be fun to do in future. If America is picked again, I would consider it.

This Saturday I went skiing for the second time (I went the Sunday before then, too). I snowboarded last year, so I thought I would try something new this year, since I hadn't done either before coming to Japan. Skiing seems easier to me than snowboarding, but it might just be that learning one when you know the other makes things easier. I was able to turn and stop one the first day (snowboarding took three days to get good at it). On Saturday we left the bunny slope and tried a slightly higher difficulty slope without much difficulty. We want to go to Nagano sometime later to ski there. It should be a lot of fun.

I woke up this morning to a beautiful layer of light snow on the roads. It's been snowing most of the day, too. They say it will keep snowing until Friday. However, most of the snow on the roads melted during the day. I am just worried it might freeze up tonight because the temperature is right around freezing now.

Well, we have returned from our trip to Australia safe and sound. Yesterday we got back to Japan to discover that it was clear and sunny without any snow on the ground. Definitely not what we expected after the barrage of snow last year.

Of course, it couldn't stay nice for us and a cold front came in last night, causing heavy rains and the temperature to drop to freezing. Today it is going to snow all day long. Maybe I can still catch a flight back to Australia...