It's cold in Shanghai!

It's started to get cold again. It was cold for a few weeks in October, warm in November, and now bitterly cold in December. There's a cold wind which really gets to your bones. Coat scarf and gloves weather now (-2, -3 degrees), and recently I've been turning the heating on at night.

We insulated the windows and doors with draught excluder (the quality of the windows in the apartment vary. it annoys me so that even in high quality accomodation, the owners save money on cheap windows in the kitchen and bathroom). If I buy a property, then these are simple things I will look to rectify.

What's the best thing for feeling cold? A hot bath or shower. Unfortunately, we've been having some problems with the hot water for showers. The water occasionally suddenly stops being hot (and turns ice cold), as if the boiler has had a safety cut-out. And when showering if you only open the hot tap, the water isn't hot enough to scald. Having a bath as I discovered today, is nigh on impossible - the water in a tub doesn't really get beyond luke warm.

It seems the water pipes feeding the building are pretty cold. I was told that in the Top of City apartment complex, they have centrally heated hot water piped to every apartment. I'd imgine system like that could overcome this problem. Either that, or fitting a higher gauge water boiler in the apartment. Brrrrrrr!