As I'm sure many of you will have heard, Beijing (and seemingly the rest of the world!) is experiencing a Big Freeze, with temperatures here dropping as low as -16.7C during the night (the lowest temperature since 1971!), and hovering around -13C in the daytime. Strangely, it seems more bearable at night, and I wonder if this is because I simply *expect* it to be colder then!
The heaviest snowfall in Beijing in almost 60 years meant that hundreds of flights were cancelled (mainly domestic, but also international - so Dave and I were lucky to land (safely on a snowy runway...) on Monday morning!), and for the FIRST TIME, schools were shut for a snow day. Extreme cases in the north included this train, literally stopped in its tracks by a wall of snow.
However, it's remarkable how better equipped China is when it comes to snow, in comparison with the UK. And if you remember my previous post about snow, Beijing actually only sees, on average, 3 snowfalls per year - so it isn't that common an occurrence. A few flakes of snow can see the whole of London ground to a halt, including the Underground (which, in particular, never ceases to amaze me, seeing as it is UNDERground....). Here, more than 20,000 people were dispatched to shift the snow: from the road, to the gutter, the gutter to the pavement, the pavement back to the gutter (yes - jobs for the masses!) all day and all night, which meant that Monday morning saw a steady, if slow, stream of traffic around the city. Sadly, this means no snow days over here and,for the most part, it's business as usual for the start of 2010...
As an aside, this post is made using the "email to blog" function, as I can't access the editing part of my blog at the moment - so please forgive any dubious formatting etc!
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