From The Big Picture and the National Geographic Photo Contest, 2011

Kent Shiraishi captures the first snow at a nature spot in Hokkaido, Japan.  Don't forget to click to see a bigger version.  As usual, the bigger picture is much more impressive.

Japan recovers

Remember how whole districts were smashed to flinders, and those flinders just covered the ground?   As the Big Picture shows, the Japanese have piled up or even removed much of the junk.

Here's a place where they have done a particularly good job, showing before and after:

Rebecca Solnit's wise words, again

Panic, looting and other myths

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From the Big Picture photo collection.

Another good idea from Japan: Yukigassen

From the Weather Network:

When Canadians think about the ultimate winter sport, games like hockey come to mind. But in Japan, some people think of an organized snowball fight.

This is not your typical backyard snowball face-off. The snowballs aren't just perfect. There are 540 of them. They were made in a machine and are each 6.5 to 7 cm large.

It's part of a game called Yukigassen, which is Japanese for “snow battle.” The first tournament in North America was held in Saskatoon on Friday and Saturday.

Ready for battle

How is it played? Two teams of seven players compete. Each team has a flag, and half of the snowballs, to be used over three periods. There are two ways to win. Either eliminate all members of the opposing team by hitting them with snowballs and getting them “out” or capture the other team's flag.