Snow

Snow like we've never experienced before. Knee deep in snow in a colourless white world, where the ground is as pure as the formless sky. Snow in its gentlest powdery form, incessantly swirling downwards, shyly caressing the cheeks and then dissolving quickly as if it is sorry for the intrusion. In its compacted state, the roads are rendered slippery and tyres skid on them, unless braced with steel chains or special grooves that give the needed friction. This is the Japanese Alps, at the World Heritage village of Shirakawa-go, where the temperature is 0 deg C or lower from Dec to Feb. In the summer, it would have been a village of A-frame thatched roof houses set amidst watery paddy fields. But when we visited on 30 Dec 2006, it was resplendent in white. You climb up the hill on foot, along a narrow canyon of a path created by earlier walkers and you are eventually rewarded with a bird's eye view of the whole town below. And then, just then, the sun comes out for a short smile, and a hint of shadow shapes the buildings below. Such glorious white...

Chup