Snow Day in Kobe

Hello!

A rare winter snowstorm swept through Kobe and most of Japan this past week.

In my area of Kobe, snow can happen occasionally, but it never accumulates to anything notable. In other parts of Kobe, particularly the mountain areas, snow is a bit more common but still does not stick around for long.

We started to hear on Tuesday that there would be a big storm coming through the area on Wednesday. Teachers at school started to discuss it, talking about the availability of different types of transport.

The snow started Tuesday evening accompanied by a temperature drop.

By Wednesday morning, most public transport was suspended - no buses or trains were running. My school sent out a note to parents saying that the students should stay home and more updates would come later in the morning.

Compared to what I was used to in Chicago, it really was not a lot of snow, maybe a few inches with ice. But since Kobe never sees this type of snow, the city does not have any equipment to deal with it.

For the city's English teachers, we have a provision in our contract that says if public transport is suspended, we are granted "special leave" and not expected at school. So as long as the local bus was shut down, no one in my area needed to go to school.

Later in the morning, though, my school sent an update saying that students should come to school by noon - lunch would be served and all classes would do 5th period and then be sent home. It would end up being that they would only be in school for 2 or 3 hours, but the administration still wanted the students to come to school.

Even though the bus was not operable, I rode my bike down to the train station to try and catch a train to school. At the station I go to everyday, there are two train operators that run trains - Japan Railways (the JR) and the Sanyo electric line.

The Sanyo is a much more reliable train and is the one I take to school every day. Another plus is that the Sanyo station is next door to my school whereas the closest JR station is at least a 15 minute walk away.

When I arrived at the station, it appeared that the Sanyo was running trains, so I was able to catch one to go to work.

Upon arriving at school, students were just starting to file in. Almost all teachers, save for maybe one or two, were able to make it into school. It sounded like most of them worked out alternate ways to get in on time - some even walked for an hour or more to make it.

How the school handled the day was interesting in a few ways - first in that they decided to bring students to school even just for a few hours and, second, the great efforts that teachers made to get to school despite the conditions.

It sounded like this was the case throughout Kobe - many teachers went to what one might think is extreme lengths in order to make it to school. Even at schools that did not have classes.

We also had this happen at some stage last year but with rain. We had a severe rain storm that cancelled school for students one day. But even though the students did not come to school, schools still expected teachers to come in that day.

Back to the snow day. Public transport was still messed up even into the evening hours. I went to a language class downtown and then took the train back home. But at the train station, the busses were running odd schedules so I had to wait a long time before finally catching one.

That is one other thing that I have found in Japan is that the busses here usually follow the posted schedule. You can usually always count on catching the bus at the time it says it will come. At least in my area.

The snow is now mostly gone in Kobe but we are dealing with some residual cold weather.

I have included some pictures in the album below - some from hiking a local mountain (Mt Maya) which offers views of the city. You can really get a sense of the urban sprawl that is the greater Osaka and Kobe areas.

For the photos looking to the left - that is Osaka off in the distance. Kobe is the city area nearest in the photos and what you see in the distance is the Osaka area.

In some of the photos you can see the man-made islands of Kobe. I think there are at least two man-made islands in the ocean - one contains a variety of ports and the airport whereas the other one has a bit more residential areas on it.

I also took photos of some meals plus what a single family home looks like near my school. No lawns here in Kobe. Also, local stores are starting to sell cherry blossom stationary. The spring season is right around the corner.

Until next time,

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Photos from this week!