Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Popsicles in Shanghai

That's what we felt like when we got in last night. If you've been following the news, you may have noticed that there's been some major cold-weather activity across China, including heavy snowfall here in Shanghai. One of our students told me that the news people said that it was the heaviest in 50 years.

I believed it when we walked into our rooms yesterday for the first time in three weeks. The power had been off, of course, and they were like refrigerators. That wouldn't really be a problem if the heater/air conditioner were a little more . . . robust. I switched it on and turned the heat all the way up to the "surface of the sun" setting, since we were feeling chilly, and waited. And waited.

After about 30 minutes, the little device apparently warmed itself up to the point where it decided it was capable of actually emitting heat, so it started dribbling out warm air. After two hours or so, it had raised the temperature in the room to about 10C (50F). We huddled together in bed, clad in socks, exercise pants, long-sleeved T-shirts, coats, and anything else we could find to keep us warm, and offered up thanks that we didn't usually have to do things like this.

This morning was much better; after chipping the ice off of my blankets to get out of bed, and snowshoing across the room to the shower, I felt positively warm. And they call this subtropical.

Dave

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am glad you all made it home safe though. As always Dave, your post left me laughing.