I didn’t know much about Shenyang until we moved to this city. If I could say one thing about Shenyang, I would say “Shenyang is a really cold place in winter!” hehe Also, Shenyang was a place called Manchuria which was under Japanese occupation in 1932. There are many historical buildings that were built around that time. Living in Shenyang as a Japanese, I have a lot of feelings and also I feel responsible for learning about what happened during that time.

Shenyang Station (瀋陽駅). It was called “Mukuden Station” back then.

Mukden Post Office was completed in 1914. Now this building is used as a China Post Office, and has a cafe called “Post Coffee.”

I ordered an Almond latte. I loved the postage stamp on the cup.

The altitude is almost the same as Hokkaido, Northern Japan. But there isn’t as much snow in Shenyang compared to northern Japan, since Shenyang is a dry area.

Last year, I was hoping that we could enjoy Shenyang’s autumn season. We started noticing some leaves were changing color, but a week later, all the leaves had already fallen because the temperature got really low… The summer and the fall seasons passed so quickly, and we had a long winter.

One day, my daughter brought home some fallen leaves that she found at school. I got some inspiration from the leaves and their beautiful colors. I felt like I wanted to make autumn leaf-shaped Nerikiri Wagashi.

The filling in this Wagashi was apple cinnamon flavored. The real leaves were the ones that my daughter gave me.

The temperature got really cold starting in October. And we experienced negative -18.4 Fahrenheit（-28 degrees) around December.

This is a river that freezes in the winter.

Shenyang is known as the largest city in northern China with a population of 8.294 million. Although there aren’t a lot of green spaces, there might be places outside the city where you can enjoy nature and different kinds of flowers.

We went to a local festival in winter even though it was so cold. My daughters loved the Chinese sugar painting.

I feel so grateful to feel the sunshine and the warmer weather these days. To take advantage of this nice weather, we often go outside for a walk. The photo below is a cherry blossom tree I found while we were walking around outside.

I didn’t know that there are Sakura, cherry blossoms, in Shengyang. I was so glad when I found them swaying in the spring wind comfortably.

I was so happy to see the cherry trees, but at the same time I felt a bit sad, missing something.

Shenyang has such a short period of warmer weather, so we want to enjoy this nice weather and explore the city as much as we can!

I wonder if Japan is going to have a rainy season soon. In my hometown, Yatsushiro, I still remember that during the rainy season, a lot of frogs start singing in the rice fields.

Thank you for reading my blog.