Memoirs of Beijing

Woohoo!!  I didn’t notice that it was snowing not until I was about to head off to church.  It seems like winter is early this year.  It’s kinda strange as when I asked my friends about two years ago of what they remembered as the earliest snowfall in their lifetime and they both said it was November 6. 

Well.. yesterday snowfall apparently is one of the earliest in record.  Last time it snowed this early was eighty seven years ago.  Also, it wasn’t light snow but medium snowfall with big flakes and four inches of snow.  It was so pretty that my friend and I can’t resist taking photos.

The bad side of early snowfall is freezing temperatures and no heating.  In China, all buildings north of the Yangtze river turn on their heating by the 15th of November which officially starts the winter season.  However, as it suddenly snowed yesterday, everyone is wearing two to three sets of clothing inside their home.  It’s such a pain going around and searching for a place where it’s warm.  I might have to resort in buying an electrical heater just to keep myself warm.

I hope they open the heaters soon.  The snow outside is slowly melting and the cleaning ladies are already sweeping them out of the sidewalk.  If you didn’t see some rooftops with snow, you wouldn’t know that it snowed recently.

I hope we’ll have more snowfalls this season or else if they follow the trend we have for the past couple of years, we would only have two to three more left.

I can’t exactly remember the first solar eclipse that I’ve witnessed.  All I know was I was still either in primary or secondary school.  I also remember using a film negative to look at the eclipse without harming my eyes.

When I was riding the bus last week, I can’t help but noticed an ad showing people how to view a solar eclipse.  It’s like, is there going to be one, and when is it?  I remember my colleague mentioned in passing that there would be one soon.  I just can’t remember when exactly it is.

China is no stranger to solar eclipse or lunar eclipse.  They even had one last year but since this country is so big, only a few were able to witness it.  However, this year’s total solar eclipse will traverse through several provinces and can be witnessed in totality by millions of people.

If the ad itself is hyping people up to watch this event here in Beijing where we would only see a partial eclipse, what more in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Chongqing, Wuxi, Ningbo, Three Gorges Dam area, and Suzhou where there will be a total solar eclipse.

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