When staggering home through Arctic conditions last Thursday night (well, OK, the wee smalls of Friday morn), I was alarmed and perplexed to note that - although temperatures had been continuously below freezing for over 24 hours at that point, and had been getting down towards -15°Centigrade for the past several hours - there was not a trace of ice on the old city moat which lies alongside the North 2nd Ringroad, just a few hundred yards from my apartment. I have remarked on this rather perplexing - downright scary - phenomenon before. One wonders if they're still dumping superheated sewage into it (they supposedly stopped unloading raw sewage into the city's open waterways for the Olympics, but they've probably resumed the practice now; all of that modern city/"Green" Olympics bullshit was the most temporary of window-dressing).
It is therefore with considerable relief that I note today that - despite the temperature having been much milder for the past few days, and well above freezing during the middle of the day today - the moat is at last well and truly frozen.
I imagine, then, that the nearby Houhai lakes are too, although I haven't had the chance to go and take a look yet. The ice is probably still a little too delicate to bear much weight, but give it a few more days. The two-month 'Frost Fair' down on the lakes is one of the highlights of the Beijing winter: a Bruegelian (the Elder, that is - not the mad visions of Hell one) pageant of skating, sledging, hot chestnuts and candied fruit.
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