White Vancouver

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November 29th 2005

Published: November 30th 2005

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autumncs

View from my room towards the northwest

It's snowing!

Last night, I was so excited when I see snow... (Refer to my previous post "Snow in Vancouver") Today, when I woke up in the morning and looked out of the window, I was stunned. The whole place was covered in thick white snow! The streets, the cars in the parking lots, the trees, the houses, etc were all covered in snow!!! When I walked out from my residence, the whole ground was covered with snow and people were walking carefully on the snow. The snow was wet, so when people stepped on top of the snow, the snow was compressed together to form ice. As the result, after many people and many vehicle travelled over the snow, the streets were covered with ice and became rather slippery. As I was walking, I saw UBC staffs shoving snow away from roads and streets, and I also saw people sprinkling salt onto pathways.

For a person who has never seen snow before (e.g. me), such scenes were so astonishing and amazing. Everywhere was white. At some places, the snow was more than 10 inches thick. It's really fun to walk on the fresh snow and turn my head to see the

View from my room towards the northeast

To see what the scenery is like in summer, please refer to my previous post "Fog comes, fog goes"

footprints that I make. It's also fun to see how the snowflakes were falling gracefully and gently from the sky. It's a sight that Singapore will never ever have.

At noon, it was still snowing in UBC. I was curious about whether there would be snow in Downtown Vancouver, so I took a bus to Downtown. To my disappointment, there was no more snow in Downtown. It was raining in Downtown, and I believed that any snow present in the area would have melted when the rain fell onto the snow. (Maybe the skyscrapers in Downtown generated more heat, so the temperature in Downtown was higher. On the other hand, UBC was surrounded by forest, so the temperature was lower and the snow didn't melt in UBC.)

By the way, I could see a difference of opinions regarding the weather between the Canadians and the Singaporeans. When it snowed last night, one of my Canadian roommates gave a "What? Not again?" expression and he said everything would melt on the next day. When I told a guy in my lab that I've never see snow before, he said that snow is not very interesting after all and if

View from the balcony towards the northwest

To see what the scenery is like in summer, please refer to my previous post "Fog comes, fog goes" (By the way, you can see snow on top of the balcony ledge.)

I see snow too often, I will get sick of it. On the other hand, my Singaporean friends were obviously very excited. When it snowed last night, everyone of them announced on his/her MSN nicknames that it was snowing... Many of my Singaporean friends also updated their blog about the snow and they left remarks such as "Hopefully the snow will get heavier", "I hope the snow will last longer", etc...

The difference of opinions regarding the weather is also visible during the summer. During the summer, most Canadians go outdoors and enjoy the sunshine. On the other hand, my Singaporean friends and me would stay indoors and try to avoid the sun as much as possible. This is because Singapore is a tropical country and it's hot and humid for the entire year. In Singapore, one would sweat after standing under the sun for 5 minutes. Hence, in Singapore, when the sun comes out, most people will head towards the indoors, esp air-conditioned places... Somehow, when we go overseas, the habit of avoiding the sun persists. In Vancouver, many of my Singaporean friends stayed indoor when the sun is out. (E.g. When having lunch, we always sit indoors,

Snow

while the Canadians sit outdoors.)

Anyway, I better take another good look of the snow now. When I return to Singapore one month later, I won't have a chance to see snow again.

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