Snow in Shanghai

I guess we ended up in the middle of one of the bigger snow storms in Shanghai in the last several years. Downtown Shanghai got an inch or so of snow on the grass and other other cold areas with a lot of slush everywhere else. Areas a bit west looked like they got several inches of wet slushy snow Its not an area that is used to having snow on the ground and we saw a lot of interesting behavior. In many parts of town and even on the outlying roads we would see teams of people out shoveling the roads. Not the sidewalks or the driveways but the roads! Whole teams of people with grain shovels out shoveling sections of road. There were other teams out with long poles whose only job seemed to be to knock snow off all the trees and bamboo along the roads. The death scooter drivers got less frequent and more careful. I have to say the regular drivers also seemed to become very cautious. People came out on the streets just to take pictures of the snow.
   Since it was snowing and cold we decided to go the Shanghai aquarium. I wasn't sure what to expect since some reviews on trip advisor suggested it wasn't worth the cost, about $25 per person. I was pleasantly surprised.  The first display was on shark conservation. Hopefully it hits home and the Chinese stop eating shark fin soup. After that there were extensive sections on rivers in South America, Asia, and Africa. Then sections on the arctic, open oceans, and coral reefs.  Two of the coolest features were an escalator that went down through a tunnel in a tank and a 150 meter long tunnel through several tanks. They also had the best jelly fish display I've ever seen. Dozens of species in colors you never knew existed in jelly fish.  The only sad part was three rather unhappy looking seals but at least it wasn't Sea World with captive whales.
  In the evening we decided to walk over to the Bund and see what it was like in the snow. There were tons of people there just walking around enjoying the spectacle of the city so rarely covered in snow.  I saw two guys trying to have a snow ball fight. At first I thought maybe we should show them how its done but then I thought we can come up with a better use for the snow. We started rolling big snow balls for a snowman. At first the guys thought we were just making bigger snowballs and they imitated us. Then we started building and decorating the snowman. Before we knew it we had quite a crowd watching us and filming us on their phones. Then one of the spectators jumped in to sculpt arms to replace our stick arms. Finally the two guys that started it all with their snowball fight decided to make their own snowman. They must have been artists of some sort because they ended up sculpting something that looked like Pikachu. Our snowman was the classic 3 ball design but theirs was better.

Somehow in the midst of the biggest snow storm to hit the Shanghai area in years we ended up at the Huzhou Hot Springs resort a few hours outside Shanghai. It has a collection of about 25 hot springs pools under a glass roof. It was great to soak in them and watch the snow outside. They put giant tea bags full of herbs in the pools which dyes them different colors and gives them different smells. Some of them have slices of citrus floating in them. Here are some pictures of the resort, the springs, and the surrounding hillsides