Today on the way home from visiting two of my elementary schools, I came upon a bend in the road. I started coughing one of those annoying coughs that you just can't stop. I realized mid cough that I was going too fast and reacted . . . by slamming on the break. I knew it was the wrong thing, but in the midst of the cough, I couldn't think to do the right thing - shift to second or pump the break. So I slid into the bank of snow (thankfully not the lake, on the other side!).
The car got stuck. Then one Japanese man showed up to help. He tried backing out - with no luck. I pulled out my handy-dandy (and much larger than at home) ice scraper and brush to start digging - I have no shovel in this car. wasn't able to get it out either.
The second was someone who works in the City Hall. Then another car with two more Japanese men showed up. One started asking about a rope to pull my car out of the snow with. As they were figuring all of this out, two more cars with two more Japanese men arrived. Not one car in this middle of nowhere place in Japan failed to stop and help me get the car out of the snow! It was incredible.
We got my car out of the snow and I "arigato gozaimashita"-ed everyone (Thank you). And I drove along. Unfortunately after that scare barely keeping the speed limit - and two of these poor guys had to drive behind me (guess they'll blame the fact that I'm a gaijin!).
The result? My Boss (the head of the BOE) along with two other men from the BOE came to the high school afterward to check on me. Luckily I had just finished telling the music teacher what happened and between dictionary, English, Japanese and gesture, I was able to communicate to her what happened. She passed it on to the BOE people.
So, after all of that, I'm ok and the BOE car is ok. If I had to have a snow accident, I definitely was hoping it would be one like this and not anything serious.
