Fall in Shanghai

Fall in Shanghai has been beautiful for the most part. All of October was mild weather (think short sleeves and sandals!) and blue skies almost every day. 

November has been a little cooler, but still not bad. Most days we can get by with just a sweater. I still love exploring outside with my cute, pink, pony-tailed lassie. :)

But it's not all been rosy. The beginning of this week the pollution was horrible. The Air Quality Index hit 260 (probably due to the fact that factories here burn coal for heating), Ryan and I could feel the heaviness affecting us, feeling pretty bad all day with a headache to boot, and I didn't want to take Hadassah out to breathe it in, so she was pretty fussy. For reference, 50 is the high end of "good" and we were at "very unhealthy" where it is "Health warnings of emergency conditions. The entire population is more likely to be affected."

We went out that evening since Hadassah was restless and the AQI was down to 140. Still "unhealthy for sensitive groups" so we tried out our masks. But Hadassah kept pulling hers off and crying if we forced it back on. What do you do? Make her wear it and make going outside a miserable thing, or let it go without and hope the mild exposure doesn't hurt? It's hard to know. I hate how if we wear a mask, it takes away the smile...

Thankfully the wind came in and blew away the pollution for now - the last few days have been great - but we've heard the winter brings more and more heavily polluted days.

 Today was gorgeous though. I decided to capture some of the sights of fall here. Definitely not as colorful in terms of trees - this tree outside our building is one of few I've seen decked out in yellow, but with the milder weather, I'll take less color!

 The leaves on the bushes in our complex turn a beautiful maroon...

 And there are roses. Yes, roses in November! After a year and a half in Iowa, I'd forgotten how amazing a southern climate can be!

 There are other colorful flowers planted in our apartment complex making it live up to its name: HaoDiFang Apartments - "Happy Place."

 They sure know how to do landscaping here. This is outside the gate to the university across the street. The pansies make up for the lack of such fall colors on trees!

 And these are my favorite flowers... it looks like fire blooming!

The tops of these bushes also do their best to bring out the color. It's a beautiful fall here, indeed.