Hi everyone,

“Hurry up Mr. Allen, finish the class!” That was the message this morning from my students after the bell rang. The air was cold, but the students wanted to go outside Why? It was snowing!

A little snowman looking out at the school.

Wakayama doesn’t get a lot of snow because it is warm and on the Pacific Ocean side of Japan. This is a lot like my hometown of Vancouver, Canada. Canada is a cold country, but Vancouver is beside the ocean and surrounded by mountains. It makes a warm pocket that protects the city from most of winter.

When I was in high school, however, my family moved to a mountain town. We got a lot of snow and cold weather every year. In Wakayama, our school is sometimes closed because of typhoons. In Canada, my school was sometimes closed because of snow. If the school bus could not go on the road to pick students up, it was a snow day! I remmeber listening to the radio every morning as they announced the schools that were closed.

Anyway, I am writing this at 11:30am, the sun is shining, and the snow is already melting. This is probably a good thing, because it is safer for everyone going home tonight. The snow is exciting at the start, but it can become troublesome quickly. Just look at Moscow, Russia today, which had a “storm of the century”. One month of snow dumped in 2 days. Yikes!

A record-setting snowfall in Moscow this week.

Have a good week,

Allen