"Shibareru" is Hokkaido's dialect expressing the state of "freezing cold", or actually something's freezing due to the low temperature below zero.
We don't have Shibareru days any more in late February, and walking outside is getting much easier compared with those arctic days.
When walking along a narrow worn line of snow in Otaru Park today, I was looking back on my childhood.
Like many other children, I enjoyed outdoors playing with snow, eating snow ball that tasted a bit of dust, taking an icicle off from the low eaves, and trying to gnaw it.
Children would never mind the Shibareru weather, and often enjoyed skiing on the nearby slopes after school.
In those days, traffic was much lighter, and I think the streets were much quieter in winter than other seasons because of the snow absorbing noise.
White birch grove in Otaru Park
Icicles and Pigeons
