it looks like

And that it does. It looks like someone blew up the Ghostbusters Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from the end of the Ghostbusters film. In fact it has been snowing so steadily here that the snow has chilled the windows of our office building and the snow has caked on to the outside panes. The caked snow-on-windows outside looks like puffy bits of marshmallow all over the windows.

But let me cast that aside. I won’t go into detail about how I need to trek to work in full-on snowboarding gear, fighting the wind the whole way down from my home and to the office -and to every school that I go and visit!

Instead there are brighter things to be talked about. Like my travels to Sapporo this weekend. Now upon returning home last night after exiting the bus, I trundled home and fell into bed and had not the time to bring some photos with me to office and post them here for you, but I assure you the photos will follow.

And these photos will include pictures of the Nijo Fish Market and the amazing bounds of fresh seafood available for devour and purchase out there in Sapporo. In fact, upon finding the market and waddling around there I was able to sample the huge-ish variety of king crab-like crab (one of several varieties available)clicked fresh from its shell at vendor-side, chomp fresh o-toro tuna at a standing room only sushi spot, eat fresh oyster from the shell alongside a slew of other Japanese tourists following suit, down a bowl of sea urchin-crab-salmon roe-and fresh sashimi donburi (or rice bowl), and follow it all with a photo of me holding a crab while people shuffled on by.

Yes. It was a rather successful weekend.
More successful becuase I was somehow able to circumnavigate this trip to Sapporo before the blizzards have set into town here. My goings to Sapporo begot me the purchase of heavey snow gear and other winter-Alaskan necessities like long underwear and an alarm clock that looks just like the one that the Tic-Toc Croc from Peter Pan swallowed. Except my wind-up clock is better because the company that manufactured it is called Dulton co.
That’s right.

In my fleeting last minutes in Sapporo after my shopping, noodle-slurping, and money-spending was done I stood for an armful of minutes at the JR (Japan Rail) ticketing gate. Right behind where rows of people sat waiting for their trains, with people waiting for people to get off the trains, etc. I would like to say that I’ve seen many busy train stations in my time, but Japanese train stations really take the cake. No I haven’t been to India but I hear train stations can be busy there, too.

I stood with my back to the wall waiting out my last minutes before my scheduled bus was to pull out and head back up the coast toward the last northern town in Hokkaido. And in those waiting minutes I had the richest time just watching people of all sorts -all mostly Japanese of course- wondering and wandering left and right. The business of JR Sapporo Stations filling my mind and my heart before my returing back to the country town where I work and live.

It really was a good weekend. And I really will post pictures more. I’ll just have to bring them from home.
And now, if you’ll excuse me I have a blizzard to walk home in. Thank-goodness for the long underwear.