Snowed In, In Sendai

(Yes, thank you sign-maker for explaining 回転すし. Found in Asakusa, Tokyo near the subway station)


Last night, I went to Zaiki's birthday party. I don't remember many of the details, except that we rented out a bar called Zen for a nomihoudai, and then went to Ageha for (overpriced!) karaoke.

All yesterday, it was raining fairly hard for Sendai. I actually had to ride the bus to the party, with an umbrella and a waterproof parka. Eventually it slowed down by midnight, and for much of my stumble home I didn't use an umbrella at all.

...

When I finally awoke today with a moderate hangover, all was WHITE. I stumbled around for my glasses to confirm. There was a full-blown blizzard outside, with snow colliding horizontally into the dorm. By the time I went outside for dinner at 屋名亭満天 (the ramen place), there was at least 4 inches of heavy, slushy snow on the ground.

Most of the roads looked passable, at least the ones patrolled by taxis. In fact, about every 4 of 5 cars I saw out tonight were taxis, which is a bit higher than the 3 of 4 during the day in Sendai. I have three or four rants about taxis that I could put here, but I'll try to distill into maybe just one or two.

It almost made me miss Michigan and the 4 feet of snow.. until I realized that I couldn't walk to a ramen shop at 9:30PM on a Saturday in Michigan. Tradeoffs, I guess.