The Weather

On our first day out and about without Jon in Beijing, it was supposed to rain. It wasn't hot, but it was overcast, humid and by no means cool.

Carissa (loosening the shoe laces on her hiking boots): "My feet are hot. And this is supposed to be the coldest day."

Elijah: "What part of 'hot as balls' didn't you understand?"

Indeed.

The weather was a bit all over the place when we were there. It's was generally warm, but it's definitely cool at night. Except in Jon's apartment, which seems to have an entirely separate weather pattern that consists solely of being ridiculously hot and stuffy. Open the windows, you say? Then the particulate streams in and covers every surface including our throats and lungs. I'll settle for the put-put of air conditioning that is available, thank you very much.

As mentioned, the pollution in Beijing is other-worldly. It varies greatly, but on a bad day you can't see across the street clearly. When we were there, it mostly wasn't too terribly bad, and it eased up after the first couple days. But, Elijah was noticing minor breathing problems that he remembered from when he was a kid living in the polluted Central Valley (California). He didn't realize until he moved to the coast that his never-ending sighs were an environmental factor. 

View from Jon's apartment: Pollution on a good day. On a bad day, you can't see past those buildings on the right. On a really bad day, you probably can't even see those buildings.

If there weren't so much pollution, Beijing is a relatively "normal" city weather-wise: hot in the Summer (painfully so, in fact), and cold in the winter. Jon says that the government doesn't allow the heat to be turned on until a certain day -- yes, the government is in charge of when people can start using their heaters, like how our government is in charge of when national parks open for a season -- and that last year a bunch of people died due to an unexpectedly early cold front. Yeah, wow.

We chose to come in May because Spring is the most (historically) pleasant time weather-wise in Beijing. The winter cold has worn off, but the brain-melting heat of the summer hasn't yet set in. I wouldn't really call the weather we experienced pleasant (mostly becasue of the pollution, but also because it was sorta hot and humid, and also sorta because I'm a big baby), but it certainly wasn't terrible.

Until we got to Shanhai. At which time, conveniently, I had left my jacket and rain jacket in Beijing. Typically, Shanghai is hotter than Beijing. So I packed some shorts, a few shirts and moseyed over to the coast. The first day was beautiful. Sunny, not too polluted, warm: beautiful. Jon checked the forecast for the weekend as we enjoyed the pleasant dusk by the river. Rain. Both days. Note to self: it's more effective to check the weather before heading to a place rather than just once you're there. Grrr.

Fortunately, the rain wasn't too terribly bad. It rained all of Saturday day, but we borrowed an umbrella from our hotel and it fortunately wasn't cold or windy. It was overcast Sunday, but neither cold nor rainy. Plus, it gave us an excuse to sit in our uber-plush hotel room and watch Major League without feeling too terribly guilty.