Snowy spring day
With our heat already shut off on the fifteenth, what could possibly be more welcome on the first day of spring than 6-8 inches of snow?
Waking up to this view Wednesday morning was incredible. I love it when our industrial park looks less like an industrial park.
The forecast for the afternoon was for 40 degrees F, so I knew if we were going to enjoy the snow at its fullest, we had to be outside right after breakfast. No one argued as they quickly suited up in long underwear, wool socks, and snow pants. We decided to go to Changping Park, since the Great Wall, our favorite Beijing-snow-destination, would be out of the question. The park, though, gave us plenty to do for the hour-and-a-half we could spare.
There was just so much snow, and it was so thick and startlingly white. The park was full of other people, mostly adults, taking pictures of one another with fancy cameras and phones, but not so full that Myles and Brigid couldn't enjoy playing, often undisturbed.
Most of our favorite places in the park were still blanketed from the overnight storm.
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The transforming power of snow was undeniable. It was as though we had entered a new, idealized Changping. So clean, so white, so rare.
It it could only look like this all the time, I couldn't help but think wistfully. But then again, we wouldn't appreciate that as much as we did our first day of spring, 2013.
And speaking of spring, which this chilly, snowy (and unheated) week has seemed to hit a delay, I must remind myself it is really coming. It is inevitable, and there was no greater reminder of that than this flowering tree we saw Thursday afternoon, only a day after the snow storm, in the Jiandemen area down in Beijing city near some friends' apartment. We are still a few weeks away from seeing this in Changping, but we will.
Well, for us, it actually was very welcome. I cancelled our morning school work in order to enjoy the unusually heavy snow that would certainly be melted away by afternoon.
The forecast for the afternoon was for 40 degrees F, so I knew if we were going to enjoy the snow at its fullest, we had to be outside right after breakfast. No one argued as they quickly suited up in long underwear, wool socks, and snow pants. We decided to go to Changping Park, since the Great Wall, our favorite Beijing-snow-destination, would be out of the question. The park, though, gave us plenty to do for the hour-and-a-half we could spare.
There was just so much snow, and it was so thick and startlingly white. The park was full of other people, mostly adults, taking pictures of one another with fancy cameras and phones, but not so full that Myles and Brigid couldn't enjoy playing, often undisturbed.
Most of our favorite places in the park were still blanketed from the overnight storm.
TThe transforming power of snow was undeniable. It was as though we had entered a new, idealized Changping. So clean, so white, so rare.
It it could only look like this all the time, I couldn't help but think wistfully. But then again, we wouldn't appreciate that as much as we did our first day of spring, 2013.
And speaking of spring, which this chilly, snowy (and unheated) week has seemed to hit a delay, I must remind myself it is really coming. It is inevitable, and there was no greater reminder of that than this flowering tree we saw Thursday afternoon, only a day after the snow storm, in the Jiandemen area down in Beijing city near some friends' apartment. We are still a few weeks away from seeing this in Changping, but we will.
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