Mad About Shanghai

Huge Lightning Storm Happening Right Now

Monday 28th August, 12:15pm - there has been a huge lightning storm going on in Shanghai for the last half an hour.

We have seen buildings only 200 or 300 meters away get hit by huge lightning bolts. The thunder claps have been loud and some of them have even shaken the windows.

Visibility at one point was down to only a few hundred meters due to the torrential downpour. The rain has stopped now, but the lightning and thunder is still going strong.

Its cool! I love storms - the gloom and the moodiness of it - and particularly at the moment, the rain. Shanghai and surrounding areas is desperately short of water - bring it on!

Interested in lightning - read how it's made - from NASA so it must be right!

Photo from Wang Jian Shuo's blog.

Here are some more cool lightening photos if you are interested.

Shanghai 3 & 6 Day Weather Forecasts

Just found this pretty cool website with fairly detailed weather forecasts - there is now a link in the Shanghai links on the right - so you can always check for the latest weather there.

They have a handy widget that you can add to a website that gives a 3 day forecast - but unfortunately its too big to add permanently to the blog - but this is what it looks like anyway:

The bad news is that there is no rain in sight - so dry, hot days will continue and the Yangtze's water level will continue to drop.

More Drought   News.

Shanghai - Back to Normal

Those of you that were worried about the weather in Shanghai can now all breath a sigh of relief!

That strange weather that had been afflicting shanghai for several weeks has now abated and we are again able to enjoy the wonderful smog and haze that we know and love so much.

Blue Sky Continues

The beautiful blue skies, reminiscent of Sydney skies, have continued now for over a week - its making me home sick!

There has been no pollution, no fog and no haze - nothing but clean air and blue skies since this time last week.

Where has all the pollution gone - thats what I want to know. Especially with this heat, there has been a great increase in electricity demand to power airconditioners - therefore more coal has been burned - but there is no smog! It hasn't been very windy, so where did it go?

Well, I'm not going to complain - just enjoy it. Photo was taken from the balcony this morning - looking towards Huaihai Rd over part of the old town.

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Shanghai Uses Latest Airconditioning Techniques for the Metro

The past week has seen some pretty hot days in Shanghai, just yesterday was the hottest so far this summer at 37.9 degrees.

To combat the heat in Shanghai's subway (the Metro), the latest in cooling techniques was brought out to reduce the sweltering conditions.

The blue `wheelie bin' with blocks of ice were placed strategically in the carriages to cool down peoples feet (cold air falls remember).

Photo courtesy Shanghai Daily.

Snow Blankets Shanghai

We woke up today to look out the window and see the whole of the Shanghai Old Town blanketed in snow!

It was a magical sight!

After a hurried shower and no breakfast we donned our warmest clothes and grabbed the cameras and headed out to enjoy the snowfall.

Downstairs in the open air the snow was falling quite heavily and it didn't take us long to get covered in snow. The gardens, trees, cars and bicycles that had been out all night were covered in snow which looked to be at a depth of 2 to 3 cms.

www.flickr.com

We took a walk in the snow and headed to the lake at Xintiandi to get some photos and to enjoy the quiet that the snow always seems to bring.

We saw a grandma playing with her grand kids in the snow in a park making snowballs which was really cute. The trees and the grass surrounding the lake at Xintiandi  were white and so very beautiful.

After taking a heap of photos (a unique chance to capture images of Shanghai in the snow), we headed into the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Xintiandi for a hot chocolate. Brad insisted we had a hot chocolate because he felt like he was having a break from skiing!.

www.flickr.com

We were inside warming up for only 30 - 40 minutes, when we came out, the snow was basically gone. It had fallen off the tress and was rapidly melting into the grass, the fresh snow that was still lightly falling was melting as soon as it touched the ground.

We were glad that we went out and took the photos as soon as we did, if we had waited until after breakfast we might have missed it all!

Heres some of the photos if you didn't get up early enough to get your own.

www.flickr.com

A few days difference

What a difference a few days makes! My last post was about how warm it was and the fact that I didn't need my beanie. Well today as I was on my way to a meeting on Nanjing road, it was snowing!

It was absolutely beautiful, because there was no wind, the big fat white flakes were  drifting to the ground in that slo mo style that only snow flakes can do. I felt like I was in Montreal or Vancouver as I walking down the busy streets and watched the beautiful flakes continue to fall creating an unusually peaceful sensation.

It was still snowing after my meeting, so I took a walk through the park on Huaihai Road before getting a sandwhich in Times Square. The park was cold and very quiet. That 5 minute interlude in the snow dusted park was probably the most serene experience I have had since being in China. If I had my beanie with me, then I definately would have stayed out to enjoy that experience for longer, but my bald head was starting to get very cold from the accumulated snow flakes.

It reminded me how much I love the snow and the cold of snow covered countries. I long for the snow covered mountains and glowing fireplaces of ski towns and can't wait until I can get back on the slopes, it has been 2 years which is 2 years too long!

Summer Comes To Shanghai

Today is incredibly warm!

After the zero degree days of the past week, it started to warm up yesterday with 6 - 13 degrees for the temperature range, but today is a massive 10 - 19 degrees.

I just walked across the road and I didn't put on my beanie, my gloves and my huge jacket! Thats luxury for you.

Its still freezing in the foyer of the apartment building though because all the walls are thick tile on concrete, so I guess it will take awhile to warm up.

I'm sure there will be another cold snap before we get the nice temperatures to stay, but I will certainly be making the most of this weather.

Christmas in China

Today is a typical winter day in Shanghai - wet and cold. It rains a lot in winter and the wet cold really makes you uncomfortable. You feel the cold is trying to sneak under your skin all the time. People start to wear feather coats, scarves, gloves, hats etc - all sort of serious winter gear now.It has been very warm this year - the highest temperature was about 17-19 until a couple of days ago.  We were very lucky.

We went out doing some shopping at lunch time. To our surprise, there weren't big crowds out there, even somewhere like People's square was quiet - we didn't have to dodge people at all. We thought it must be because of the rain.

In some shopping centers and office buildings, there are Christmas trees and  other Christmas decorations already. Inside of Raffles city near People's Square, we found there were reindeer hanging on the ceiling just like those in Sydney, the only funny thing  is that all the reindeer are actually the same - all of them are the red nosed Rudolph!

More and more western festivals are promoted and celebrated in China now, but sometimes people only get the time and business sense part right, but ignore the actual cultural side - just like the reindeer.

There is no official holiday for Christmas in China - so people have to work unless it is weekend. But lots of churches will have big ceremony at Christmas eve. I noticed on the big board in front of some restaurants saying " Booking Christmas eve dinner/party".  This is another benefit for the businesses. Before they could only provide New Year Eve's Dinner for Chinese New Year.