Fit the 31st: In which our protagonist becomes a human icicle

When the day starts with this on your window, it is not difficult to guess how the rest of the day's weather is going to pan out. Today I hiked off in search of books - Lonely Planet Japan and a history book for Mark - to Xidan, a big new shopping development. Having half frozen on the way to the subway, I was, for once, glad of the heat stale air of the train carriges! Unfortunately there was no luck in the book trawl, so I headed off back to the underground and walked home via a market. On the way back I stumbled across the remains of the old earthen wall of Yuan (mongol) Dynasty beijing - which now sits between two lanes of heavy traffic. It's an earthen wall and still in fairly good nick for something made of mud and 700 years old I reckon!. The earth wall itself lies behind this stone and concrete marker, which demonstrates how tall and broad the wall was in its day. After successive generations of Beijinger's feet trampin up and down its sides, its a touch shorter now...