Winter in Beijing

Living in Bejing has made me learn one new fact about myself.

I really despise the cold.

The winter in Melbourne is fine, if you can even call it winter. It’s usually does not drop below 0 degree Celsius at night.

But in Beijing, we will throwing poms poms in the air if it was 0 degree Celsius in the day.

Usually, its about – 5 Celcius to -10 Celsius during the day. During the night, it will probably drop down to about -15 Celsius.

There are many reasons why I despise the cold. Firstly, it makes me lazy. I love outdoor sport. I love doing long runs and long hike. Definitely not possible in winter. I have put on about 3 kgs coming to Beijing. The cold made me eat more. That coupled with the lack of exercise only leads to the logical result of putting on weight. Gosh, I’ve since shed about 1 kg ever since the weather started warming up.

Secondly, no matter what clothes you buy, you will never look fashionable. Does a penguin look fashionable to you? You either look tubby or fat. Either way, its not possibly to look hot. I tried googling, “fashionable clothes in winter” or something along those lines. Yeah, right. The clothes displayed on most websites are suitable for spring, not winter -where, wearing stockings with ankle-boots is possible. I wear ugg boots everywhere. That is not fashionable. That’s why they are called uggs (short for UGLY) But in such extreme weather, comfort wins over fashion anytime.

The worst is the dry skin. It doesn’t help that this is Beijing’s driest winter in a decade (or decades?) or something along those lines. It’s so dry that I’m constantly putting on intensive moisturising cream. Plus, I bought a humidifier for my room. Still, not good enough. It’s very bad for my skin. I think I’ve aged a couple of years just suffering through one winter in Beijing. The worst is riding on the moped during winter. Gosh, the wind actually hurts your face. Sometimes i touch my face because I wonder whether my face actually froze during my rides. It is nuts. Before I bought the moped, a couple of people warned me that I could not ride the moped come winter as the roads are too icy for it. But the dry winter has caused most of the season to not be stormed with snow which made it possible to ride the moped.

Anyway, there’s always an upside to everything.

If there’s one thing I like about winter here is snow and ice! Ice means ice skating! Hou hai （后海）is a beautiful lake in Beijing. It’s great in summer because there’s all these nice bars and cafes surrounding it. In winter, the lake freezes up and it because a natural ice skating rink. To top it off, skating there is not that expensive, if i recalled correctly, it’s probably about 30 yuan (5 AUD/5 USD) inclusive of shoes.

Or if you have your own skates and prefer to skate outside the enclosed maintained skating rink, you can do so for free. That being said, be warned that the ice will not polished and therefore, your skating experience will literally be a bumpy one.

One-must-see activity is old men jumping into the lake! One section of the ice was carved out, so that people could take a swim in the lake. Are they gutsy or now? Now, don’t call Chinese people wimps till you actually have tried it on your own. Old Beijingers believe that the cold water is good for the body. If you dare, you can try it too.

Pictures to follow:

Standing on a natural lake. It was rock solid.

A traditional pagoda overlooking the lake

 

Carved out ice. A natural swimming pool with no temperature control.

A brave young man doing his Olympic sprint. Old men behind in their trunks, getting ready to jump in.

Gotta stretch and warm up your body, lest you cramp up.

Boys will be boys. Throwing and breaking large blocks of ice. Endless free fun.

A typical winter look. 2 shirts underneath. A jacket. Ear muffs. 2 scarfs. Not fashionable at all yet still freezing cold.

While we were cautiously making our way across the lake, the guy gracefully rides his bicycle across it!

Ice hockey!

About to ice skate.

Back in his former life, he apparently used to be one of the best ice skaters in China. I believe him as he skated really well. Apparently, he is also a movie director and an author. What can this man not do? After our skating concluded, we made our way to his home in the hutongs (胡同, hutong can be loosely translated to alley. In the old parts of Beijing, many people live in houses located in tiny alleys. Even though their houses may look old and small, they are worth millions. The price came as a shock to me because most of these houses do not even have private bathrooms. They have to use a public bathrooms which do not have individual cubicles – as in, open bathrooms without doors. By that, I mean, other people can watch you poop. Say what??? ）

His house was next to the lake. In fact, he sold his other properties to buy this house so that he can conveniently skate there during winter.  We picked up a few copies of a book he wrote. Very interesting stuff. Also, it was my first time in a hutong home. I always wondered what it was like to live there.I finally saw the insides of a hutong home. Unfortunately, no pictures as it might be a little offensive to take pictures of a person’s home.

Houhai at night. I like it because its a concoction of the old and the new. Bars and cafes with traditional-looking facades. And the frozen lake is located on the right side of the picture.