Just so natural winter in Greenland

Today, Nuuk got a lot of snow from the early morning. This made me think that, ‘finally we are in the middle of the winter’. It just reminded me last year on my way to work and I wrote this story in January last year. It was originally written in Korean but today I would love to share this story in English.

Here it is.

After Christmas and New Year’s holidays, there was a school exam, and later I returned to work. Interestingly I feel like to work, when I study but, when I work, I miss my study. My motto is, ‘Let’s do what I want to do’. Consequently, I have so repeated between study and work since I was twenty years old.

Business hours in the normal company in Greenland is from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.. It means that there are quite plenty of time to enjoy their own time after work, for example, with their family or for the self-development.

When I go to work in the morning just before Christmas, I had a melancholy feeling because of the dark morning, also even after work. But now I definitely feel that the daytime is getting longer. After work. it is not dark anymore outside. “Now the winter is gone and finally the spring is coming?” On the occasion of my question like that, the white snow comes back to Nuuk again and again.

The weather just like the climate disaster film, The Day After Tomorrow, continues for a few days. One day, it was great to see the amazing scenery outside from my window followed by a day off from both my work and study. It was simply so amazing to see cars running even in the snow stormy weather and nothing seemed strange parents to take their children to walk outside.

Through a blizzard, one mother was going up the hill with two children carrying on a sled. A child in the back of the sled fell off the sled but the mother did not notice and kept walking forward with a few more steps. A little child who fell off the sled did burst into crying soon, and then finally the mom realised that the child had fallen out of the sled.

This morning, the visibility on the street was not even five meters away in a blizzard. Snowploughs and snow removal workers were working early in the morning in the blizzard. Just before going to work, I was in thought for a moment. “Should I take a big road that would have less snow, or should I take a shortcut to get less snow and colder?” Eventually I chose the latter as usual, and regretted as soon as I got into the shortcut.

The snow was piled up to my waist and I shouted, “Oh no, why I came this way”. It was too late to regret it. I could not go back and got out of the shortcut. I was not walking on the street anymore. I could not see the road anymore and I felt like becoming an explorer of the Arctic. I was making my own way through the snow piled up to my waist. Whenever I get in touch with my parents, they always tell me to be careful on slippery snow and ice, but in this situation, I can not even fall down because of the buried snow. Although it took more time than usual to get to my work, I arrived at work safely.

Later evening, I delivered this long journey on my way to work to my younger sister living in Tokyo. Then she did snort at my story. “Snow piled up to your waist? then it wasn’t that much snow, was it?” It is a trap that my height is not too tall, but I wanted people to believe me. There was a lot of snow.

Now I come to think of this day. It was Friday of the 13th and that was why I met this disaster. That morning was the hardest way to work so far. Luckily most of the snow on the main road was removed after work thus it was much easier to go back home. Obviously it was cold outside, however, I was sweating when I got back home and I felt so tired on my legs and even shoulders because I tried not to fall down from the hills and on the slippery roads.

I was so tired of thinking about snow. ‘Why there is so much snow outside!’ but soon I realised that I am in Greenland and now it is winter. Snow should come and the cold weather is just obvious and not so surprising. I very often walk in a huge snowstorm and can’t see well what I have just in front of me and soon I just simply laugh out. Then I think. “Ah, well, I am just in the middle of the winter in white Greenland.”

Read more travel blogs from Insuk Kim