Posts Tagged ‘winter’

African winter

July 13th, 2010

I woke up this morning and looked out of the window. Outside, the grass, just touched ice, stretched away to a dam dotted with silent birds. Beyond that, hills gently undulated into mountains, towards, in the distance, a taller peak dusted with snow. The fingers of the sunrise were just painting the snow a gentle pink. Away in another direction, a copse of bare trees reached for the huge blue sky against a background of green hills. I was staying with friends just outside of town but in town was just as beautiful. The winter grass is dry but there hasn’t been much frost so lawns are still green – a perfect contrast to the white frost.

I sit in the garden in the mid-morning sunshine, watching a white cat trying to catch moles. A robin is bobbing from branch to branch in the apple tree. No gloves, not hat, no scarf, just one jersey – I’m not even wearing shoes – but I’m warm. I’m warm. It’s the middle of winter and a cold day but I am warm sitting in the sun, outside.

This is the winter I love. This is the gentle, beautiful winter that warms up in between cold fronts and has so much sunshine, for so much of the day, that a day that doesn’t reach the mid-teens is really, really freezing. The sun was shining brightly by 7:30am this morning.

I struggled with winter in Korea. I found myself much in sympathy with the ancient Europeans who honestly feared each winter that the sun might never return. It shook me. I began to wonder if I was imagining the pleasant winters back home. Everyone around me seemed perplexed because ‘that’s just how it is’. Being back, seeing the beauty and with my heart giving a jump of joy each time I remember that I can go outside, I feel sane again.

This, this is what winter should be like, with the dry grass and the red, red aloes and the birds and the blue, blue sky. There were no birds in the Korean winter, and no sunshine and no warmth and no winter-blue sky. Part of me wants to spend the days just lying on the grass and breathing in the joyful beauty of a proper African winter.

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Posted in South Africa

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‘Proper’ winter

January 26th, 2010

I think a lot of people I spend time with in Daegu are under the impression that I truly and deeply hate winter. They’d be wrong, as it happens. I am quite fond of winter, actually. I find it exhilarating and invigorating and quite often beautiful. The difference, of course, is that I like the winters I have grown up with and grown to love over many years, rather than the torturous cold I’ve experience for the first time in the last few months. This is not to say that it’s been all bad. Seeing snow was great and the ski trip has been one of the highlights of my time here in Korea. Going to work and especially coming home late at night in the freezing, freezing cold, however, has been horrible.

In the last few weeks, though, the weather has begun to change. It’s not the beginning of spring, which apparently is still a month away. The first stirrings of spring, the swelling buds on trees and the first beginnings of green on the hills are nowhere to be seen. Instead, it feels a little like Daegu has passed out of whatever horrible aberration was the iciness of recent months and into ‘proper’ winter weather (like that I’m used to). Suddenly, day-time temperatures are above freezing and the sun shines strongly enough to make you warm if you can find a sheltered spot. And the air is dry, dry, dry and static-y. And the best of all is the light. One of the reasons I have always loved winter is the clear, crisp air and the winter light that make you feel like you can see for a million miles.

I popped out to the shops at lunchtime today and bravely left a good deal of the winter clothing that I normally drag around with me behind. I was determined to take advantage of the slightly warmer weather and wear normal clothes. I stepped out into crisp but not freezing air. Occasional little gusts of colder air swirled past but for the most part it was perfectly still. I turned a corner and found myself walking in bright sunshine. The glorious rays of light and warmth rained down on me and made me feel like myself again – the same person who used to find a sunshiny spot to sit during school breaks in Queenstown, who used to sit in the library quad soaking up the sunshine in Grahamstown, who could spend hours and hours curled up with a book on the sunny enclosed verandah in Rondebosch.

In the clear air, the park I walked past looked pristine and perfect and each leaf of the trees outlined against the buildings and the sky. The sky. The sky in winter fills my heart with joy. The blue is empty and empty and feels like it goes on forever and ever. On the bus, on the way to work, we came over a hill and the view opened up to a picture of mountains and hills stretching to the sky with a white day-time moon hanging above the horizon. Even the crowded skyscrapers that clutter every corner of this city look sharp and sketched and beautiful in this weather.

I don’t know if it will last. Last year’s February temps suggest that it’ll still be chilly but I might get lucky with weather mostly above zero. I hope it does last for a while, partly because I dread the thought of returning to the bone-chilling weather that marked the first part of this month. But also because I want time to enjoy the kind of winter I love and to spend as much time as possible curled up, cat-like, in the warmth of the winter sun.

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Posted in Daegu

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Talking about the weather

October 8th, 2009

It feels like just yesterday I was melting in the sweltering heat of Daegu Summer. In fact, it wasn’t long ago at all. When I arrived, three months ago, I had just left a South African Winter and it took me a while to adjust to the hot, humid weather. Despite what the guidebooks may say, Daegu is hot and humid all the time in Summer. The weather will regularly reach high temperatures and it rains all the time. I think I saw more rain in my first few weeks here than I have ever in my life. Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but there was definitely lots of sticky, warm rain.

As September finally arrived, things started to cool down slightly. Instead of days of rain, the weather was warm and clear. There were days that felt a lot like the hot, dry, peaceful Friday afternoons I remember from Grahamstown. It’s probably my favourite kind of weather. Fall also brought light breezes and occasionally stronger wind. For a month, the weather was beautiful. One of the things that will now remind me of Daegu is drinking Pink Lemonade or Iced Cappuccino outside on a warm Autumn night between classes – not sweltering heat, just warm and comfortable with a breath of freshness in the air.

It’s hard to keep exact track of the changing seasons because I’m not sure what it supposed to be happening but Autumn seems now to be winding down to winter and suddenly the warmth is gone. I got back to work after the Chusoek break (all 5 days of it) and wore roughly the same clothes as I was wearing last week. Last week I was starting to feel a little chilly after dark but nothing dramatic. On Monday, I was cold coming home.

And I know that it’s just going to get colder. I’m a little bit nervous about it. I’ve never really experienced proper cold. Several of the friends I’ve made here have said that I shouldn’t worry because it doesn’t really get that cold in Daegu. The fact that they are Canadian makes me a little sceptical. I have a feeling that ‘not that cold’ means something different in South Africa to what it means in Canada.

I even tried to buy a coat. There has been a rack of coats hanging outside a particular store for a week now and they’re quite attractive and reasonably priced. It was a very pretty little white coat, with double row of buttons and a belt. I would have bought it too, but apparently this shop only sells coats for women without breasts. I was a little offended, to be honest, by the way the shop assistant looked smugly at me as if there was something wrong with me and that was why the coat didn’t fit. Particularly because I don’t have particularly large breasts at all. I realise I shouldn’t take it personally – after all, I’m in a country where it’s apparently almost impossible to find a Bra above a C-cup – but it annoyed me.

Some mornings, now, I wake up curled up in a ball, with my shoulders stiff from being hunched over. It’s not freezing, not by a long shot, but I can feel the Summer’s last kiss as it fades into a distant memory. I was reading something the other day that described Daegu as having short, hot, humid Summers and long, dry Winters. I love Winter for it’s grandeur and it’s emptiness but I will admit that this year’s winter, my first Winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the first time I’ll really be exposed to snow, makes me a little nervous. The temperatures now feel a little like the Winters I’m used to, except that it doesn’t really warm up during the day. But this is still the middle of Autumn. I may need to buy more blankets.

The changing weather also makes me feel more foreign than ever. The last two days have been overcast and chilly. I’ve wandered around in a jersey, hunched over and feeling the cold. Around me, some Koreans are starting to dress a bit more warmly but there are still people in T-shirts, school kids in nothing but shirtsleeves and women in tiny, little skirts. The other foreigners look comfortable and cool and talk about how much more pleasant this is than the boiling hot summer. I sit shivering in the corner trying hard to figure out why humans ever left the warm, welcoming embrace of a sun-drenched continent.

I have friends who have adjusted to weather in all manner of places and I’m told the trick with the cold is to find particularly comfortable and pretty winter outer-wear. If I can just find a coat and some gloves and a hat that will fit, perhaps that will make the cold better.

It feels like just yesterday I was melting in the sweltering heat of Daegu Summer. In fact, it wasn’t long ago at all. When I arrived, three months ago, I had just left a South African Winter and it took me a while to adjust to the hot, humid weather. Despite what the guidebooks may say, Daegu is hot and humid all the time in Summer. The weather will regularly reach high temperatures and it rains all the time. I think I saw more rain in my first few weeks here than I have ever in my life. Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but there was definitely lots of sticky, warm rain.

As September finally arrived, things started to cool down slightly. Instead of days of rain, the weather was warm and clear. There were days that felt a lot like the hot, dry, peaceful Friday afternoons I remember from Grahamstown. It’s probably my favourite kind of weather. Fall also brought light breezes and occasionally stronger wind. For a month, the weather was beautiful. One of the things that will now remind me of Daegu is drinking Pink Lemonade or Iced Cappuccino outside on a warm Autumn night between classes – not sweltering heat, just warm and comfortable with a breath of freshness in the air.

It’s hard to keep exact track of the changing seasons because I’m not sure what it supposed to be happening but Autumn seems now to be winding down to winter and suddenly the warmth is gone. I got back to work after the Chusoek break (all 5 days of it) and wore roughly the same clothes as I was wearing last week. Last week I was starting to feel a little chilly after dark but nothing dramatic. On Monday, I was cold coming home.

And I know that it’s just going to get colder. I’m a little bit nervous about it. I’ve never really experienced proper cold. Several of the friends I’ve made here have said that I shouldn’t worry because it doesn’t really get that cold in Daegu. The fact that they are Canadian makes me a little sceptical. I have a feeling that ‘not that cold’ means something different in South Africa to what it means in Canada.

I even tried to buy a coat. There has been a rack of coats hanging outside a particular store for a week now and they’re quite attractive and reasonably priced. It was a very pretty little white coat, with double row of buttons and a belt. I would have bought it too, but apparently this shop only sells coats for women without breasts. I was a little offended, to be honest, by the way the shop assistant looked smugly at me as if there was something wrong with me and that was why the coat didn’t fit. Particularly because I don’t have particularly large breasts at all. I realise I shouldn’t take it personally – after all, I’m in a country where it’s apparently almost impossible to find a Bra above a C-cup – but it annoyed me. I feel the urgency to find nice, comfortable, school-appropriate winter shoes and a coat. I don’t know what to expect from this cold, so I need to make sure I’m appropriately dressed.

Yesterday, I woke up curled up in a ball, with my shoulders stiff from being hunched over. It’s not freezing, not by a long shot, but I can feel the Summer’s last kiss as it fades into a distant memory. I was reading something the other day that described Daegu as having short, hot, humid Summers and long, dry Winters. I love Winter for it’s grandeur and it’s emptiness but I will admit that this year’s winter, my first Winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the first time I’ll really be exposed to snow, makes me a little nervous. The temperatures now feel a little like the Winters I’m used to, except that it doesn’t really warm up during the day. But this is still the middle of Autumn.

The changing weather also makes me feel more foreign than ever. The last two days have been overcast and chilly. I’ve wandered around in a jersey, hunched over and feeling the cold. Around me, some Koreans are starting to dress a bit more warmly but there are still people in T-shirts, school kids in nothing but shirtsleeves and women in tiny, little skirts. The other foreigners look comfortable and cool and talk about how much more pleasant this is than the boiling hot summer. Not at all sure what to make of it all, I find myself shivering in the corner trying hard to figure out why humans ever left the warm, welcoming embrace of a sun-drenched continent.

I have friends who have adjusted to weather in all manner of places and I’m told the trick with the cold is to find particularly comfortable and pretty winter outer-wear. If I can just find a coat and some gloves and a hat that will fit, perhaps that will make the cold better.

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Posted in Daegu

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