Missing Autumn

Where is fall?

I just put Gwen on the bus. While she ate breakfast this morning, we sat out on our little deck in short sleeves and shorts, reading library books. The sky is a beautiful Shanghai blue (not to be confused with a Carolina blue) today, and the sun is warm. It's been this way for weeks, just gorgeous weather. Mid-seventies during the day, sixty degrees at night. Lovely, really lovely. But something is missing.

There's not a maple tree to be seen in Shanghai, aside from the occasional small Japanese maple with it's lacy little leaves. There are some big brown leaves that we crunch through on the sidewalk outside our compound. There are some tiny red leaves falling here and there. But the majority of the trees around where we live keep their green leaves much of the winter. There isn't one brilliantly yellow, orange or red maple.

A few days ago I got an email from the property manager for our home in Chicago. He sends us updates from time to time and takes care of issues with our renters. This time he included photos in the email of the yard and house, highlighting various points of interest for us. As we've had some concerns about the life left in our driveway, there was a shot of the asphalt, strew with maple leaves. They were the leaves from the tree on our tree lawn, which I used to hate to rake up because their colors were so beautiful they looked like flowers. I clicked on the driveway picture to enlarge it and get a closer look at those beautiful leaves.

My mom took some fall photos around where my parents live and emailed them to me this morning. I literally gasped at the first one, featuring vibrantly colored maple trees.

Autumn in the Midwest is a stellar time. It may be brief, only a few weeks, really, of clear skies and amazing color, before the weather turns towards winter and cold, gray skies. But those October days are golden.

I haven't forgotten. :-)

Snow in Shanghai... and Sunshine in Sabah

Yesterday the kids had a little playtime in the Shanghai snow. It's very wet, as the temp doesn't really go much below freezing, so it's great packing snow, but very, very heavy! We didn't bring boots or snowpants with us to China, not expecting any snow at all. If you've followed the world weather at all, you've probably seen how many parts of China that don't ever get snow have been devasted this year by large amounts of it. Shanghai has really gotten off easy with this little bit of accumulation.
Rolling these wet, heavy snowballs was quite a chore. It took Caleb, Seth and my efforts combined to lift them up onto our fort.

Later today we are leaving for an area in the Malaysian half of Borneo called Sabah, to stay in a city called Kota Kinabalu for the Chinese New Year holiday break. It's fairly close to the equator, and we are expecting some warmth and sunshine there. Pictures will follow!

Snow in Shanghai

I know it doesn't look like much, but this little dusting of snow we woke up to this morning caused quite a bit of excitement. It had snowed pretty big, wet flakes yesterday on and off, melting immediately when it hit the ground but tying up traffic all over the city. Shanghai just isn't used to big snowflakes. Occassionally tiny bits of snow might be spotted, but big, easily visible flakes are a rarity. So the fact that there was visible snow on surfaces today was big news. It was even mentioned from the pulpit at our service this afternoon. A friend at church told Scott that in his four years in Shanghai this was only the second time he had seen snow on the ground. In children's church, the director asked if this was the first time any of the children there had seen snow, and several raised their hands.

Obviously those kids are not from the Midwest. This little dusting of snow is what we would call springtime where I grew up!

A Cold View

It seems that the type of cold winter weather that our family is used to has finally set in here in Shanghai, bringing with it beautifully clear skies. Last week it was balmy and so very foggy that we were literally living in a cloud. We could not see the ground at all when we looked out our windows in the morning, let alone any of the view! Our windows were a blank, white wall. But tonight the view is amazing~ the river, the boats, the Pearl Tower, and thousands upon thousands of apartment windows lit up, stretching away into the distance, as far as the eye can see.

Typhoon

Just want to let you know, in case you are a weather watcher, that although the typhoon of the decade was predicted to hit Shanghai yesterday, it moved in another direction. School had been called off for Wednesday on Tuesday afternoon because of the predicted severe weather, but we ended up with just a lot of rain and some wind. So it ended up being a nice day off in the middle of the week.

We all know about snow days... had you ever heard of a "typhoon day"? New to me!

Sunset Over Shanghai

In July I posted a much hazier sunset picture. With the clearer skies we've enjoyed the last ten days or so, the sunset has been a little more colorful. I think it is beautiful! As you can see, this picture was taken right before the city lights began to come on for the night.

Blue Sky!

Today is the clearest day we've had in the month we have been in Shanghai. There is actually blue sky, and we can see sooo far! Usually the whole sky is cloud-colored, but today the clouds are quite separate from the rest of the sky. The view is amazing... I can't help exclaiming every time I pass the window!

This is the view out the front, from our bedroom and the living room. I actually opened the little side window to take these pictures, so the clarity is better than through the glass like I usually do.
This is the view out the back, from the dining room and the kids' bedrooms. I love the red and blue roofs!
The view of the Pearl Tower from where we were with our friends this morning... so pretty against the blue sky. It would have been a great day to go up to the observation deck.
This was taken a week or so ago, on a day that wasn't nearly so clear. Notice the haze that kind of settles over the view.