Took this photo earlier today from my seat on the bus.  Not content with just opening the doors, this shopkeeper has gone one stage further by moving his bed and arm chair (see far left) out onto the pavement. 

Might consider doing this myself if it wasn’t that I lived on the 6th floor!  

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As I sit on my bed typing this I feel really uncomfortably hot and sticky.  My apartment is disgustingly hot; the air is stale and humid. 

 The temperature during the summer in Changchun is consistently hot, it’s easy to predict, and even when it rains it still remains hot.  I think many people would consider the summer weather here perfect holiday weather-  It doesn’t drop much below 25°at night and seldom breaks 35°during the day, with nearly always blue skies.
 

 I have found out what it’s really like to live in a hot climate (Yes I know it isn’t that hot compared to the rest of China, but it’s still like living on the Mediterranean). It sounds great on paper; holidaying in the sunshine enjoying the warmth, but the reality of living with this everyday is actually rather miserable.  I find it difficult to cope with the hot weather – not least because there is no air-con here (I find myself walking around the expensive department stores that do have AC)  but it makes me really tired and lethargic and all I want to do is fall asleep.  But on the plus side it’s easy to know what to wear;  I have been wearing shorts and sandals since mid-May and will continue to do so until mid-September, then like flicking a switch, the weather turns. 
 

Changchun is geared up to cope with the cold winters, and many of the apartments are not designed to facilitate air flow or draughts flowing through.  Newer apartments are starting to deal with this problem and have larger windows that are designed with this in mind, but the older places (most of Changchun) are not.  And so I am baking.   
 

So having lived in  both extremes,  I actually believe it’s easier to travel and do things during the freezing winter than it is now,  and that is despite wearing 6 layers of clothes, gloves, hat, scarf etc…      
 

I think the rain season is here, the air is really damp there’s been some flash floods and the odd electrical storm. I like storms, and the storms here are great. I remember last year being caught in a storm that began with rain then moved on to hail stones. The hail became larger and more intense, I was forced to take cover, and it intensified to lumps of ice about the size of one of those large marbels that children play with. This only lasted for about 3 minutes, but it was so hard that when it stopped, the ground was white and covered with little balls. I foolishly tried put my hand out of the window to catch some of the hail, but It just bounced off my hand and hurt. If I had got caught outside, It could have caused some nasty injuries. This was a really strange experience and extremely localised (some of the students I was with said they had never seen anything like this in Changchun ) – this only affected part of the campus I was on, other parts were totally dry.

It seems that the summer is here for good now, no more cold days.  Had a heatwave for the last 3 days, got up to 31ºC yesterday, it’s a dry heat and so not so oppressive.  Just the wind whips up the dust, and things get very dirty very fast. 

Rained today for the first time since last November.   Almost forgotten what rain was like; the smell of the air, the puddles of standing water and the mud.  Lots of mud.  😐

It’s freezing in my apartment. 🙁

For the last few days I have been wearing thermals with my large winter coat. Indeed as I type this, I am wearing my black ski-jacket and three layers of trousers, – and I still feel cold!

It isn’t that cold outside, just gets a little below freezing at night. According to the weather forecast it’s pretty mild and much warmer than recent weeks.
But In the last week I have felt more cold than at any other time this winter, including when it was -30C outside.

It’s all because there hasn’t been any central heating since the 6th (well in my apartment anyway – earlier in others!)

Why?

Well, here April is considered by the city government to be ‘spring’. So the heating gets shut down. Of course, technically it is spring. Really it’s still winter; there are no flowers and the grass is still brown. Really it should be on for another month, but I guess it saves the government money, and that’s pretty important here.

It’s at times like these, I wish that I had bought that electric blanket, and do I remember it being like this last year too, but at the time, I put it down to my ancient dungeon of an apartment. Which had very small windows and was always cold!

Man its cold today, I’m sitting at my computer freezing my hands off. Was a little colder last week, but it feels colder tonight.

The heating isn’t on yet (don’t know why, usually is on all day!!) I can see ice crystals forming on the inside of my window. My thermometer says -23C which isn’t that bad; it’s just the lack of heating that is making things seem really cold!!
I’m very supicious of the state media’s weather reports. As i found out during the summer, they like to massage the statistics. For example according to the government weather reports the hottest it got last summer was 32C (on my thermometer it got up to 38C in theshade!!); I remember watching the TV and the maximum temperature being the same for two weeks!
So when they say it’s between -20 and -15 today, I minus another 5 degrees or so, and then you have the real temperature!

The heating system in Changchun is based on central boiler houses, dotted all around the city. They are easy to spot, just look for the huge plooms of smoke pouring out the high chimneys.
These bulildings look like power stations; they have a large red and white painted chimney and giant slag heaps of coal, for good measure. I assume the water is heated through the burning of the coal and then piped to the apartments. Which is highly inefficient, but it’s simple and primative and keeps lots of people in work!

At home, you have no thermostat or bolier to decide the heating level , it’s either on on off. So if it’s too cold, tough! Put on more clothes! Everyone in my apartment complex, pays a flat fee for the heating over the winter, depending upon the square metreage of their place.
At this moment I am beginning to regret having a top floor apartment, I feel as if the heat just goes straight out of the roof, and I wish i had some control over the level of heat within the apartment, as I touch my bedroom radiator it is slightly warm – and it should be too hot to touch!