Ice Sledging

At the twinkling of an eye, autumn in Beijing is almost over and winter is fast approaching. The hot summer days of 36 to 40 degrees are giving way to much cooler temperatures now. Cold to be exact. As I write this, the temperature outside at 9:30 in morning is standing at 14 degrees and expected to plummet to only 11 degrees tonight.

Time flew past when we looked back, doesn’t it. It has been almost a year now since we shifted over to Beijing. As winter approaches and as I look back at my previous blog at http://babynme2008.blogspot.com, I realised that I had not updated much about our very first winter. Part of the main reason was that I was having so many issues with my paid VPN here to get connected to blogspot (which is blocked by the great firewall of China). When I could log in, I just could not update a new post for several months until the problem suddenly went away when I wrote in several complaints.

Although most of the pictures had been uploaded in my Facebook, I thought I would update some of those outings that we had during that period of `blog silence’ since I wanted both Chenya and Ryan to be able to read about the fun we had together as a family when they were young.

 During the cold bitter winter, the entire lake at Houhai turned into one giant skating and ice sledging ring where many, despite the freezing temperatures, came out to have fun.

One of the very memorable outings of course was having fun on a completely frozen lake at Houhai.

The central of Beijing is dominated by several lakes near the Forbidden City. They are the Houhai, Beihai and Jianhai. For most part of the year, these lakes are beautiful places to hire a boat and spent a leisurely weekend, boating. Comes winter and the lake will be totally frozen and turned into one giant skating ring!

Last winter, we managed to make our way there in sub zero temperatures during a weekend. Since, none of us have no experience in ice skating, we opted for the very crude ice sledge ride. I called it crude because it is simply just wooden planks they called chairs affixed on simple sledges with two sharp iron rods to help you push your way through the icy ring. Crude BUT fun!
 

We rented two and had so much fun sliding all over the lake with the tune of “Dashing through the snow (frozen lake),” ringing in our heads and at the same time, enjoying seeing others slipping and falling all over the place. It is no fun slipping and falling on solid ice. It can be rather dangerous, painful and definitely wet and cold.

Mommy wanted a picture taken with her daughter.

We ended up freezing, cold and wet. Ryan’s and Chenya’s nose were running faster than a 100 meters sprint because of the cold, despite the many layers of thick clothing they had. But WE HAVE FUN!

Ryan having his very FIRST cotton candy and enjoying the moment ....

 

I just can’t wait for this year’s winter where we will probably get out for another round and I am sure that Chenya will enjoy this even more now since she is already 2 years old.