昨晚，我去溜冰。虽然我滑冰两个小时，可我没有摔倒了！

So I discovered yesterday that ice skating is hugely popular with all the Chinese students over here. Is that the case in China, or is it a northern thing where the lakes freeze or something, or am I just assuming? Just curious :)

It's definitely a north-east China thing, but as a Dutchman coming from a country that goes totally nuts when the canals and lakes freeze (google 'Eleven Cities Tour'), the popularity here seems rather low.

In Beijing mostly old people skate. But the ice is usually in a very bad state because parents take their children on a sledge on the ice and use a huge sharp 'needle' to move themselves forward, creating holes in the ice.

I think in Harbin, the ice capital, it should be very popular. The difference between Holland and China is that the north-east here doesn't see much rainfall, so the dry landscape is not as suitable to create a skating culture as it is in Holland (full of canals and lakes). And of course because of China's tough history, recreation is only getting into mainstream now, skiing and skating grows in popularity every year.

Oh, China is quite good at figure skating, plus with speed skating they're slowly but surely catching up on the Scandinavians, Russians, Dutch, Canadians and Americans!

Skating picture in Holland:
http://vorige.nrc.nl/multimedia/dynamic/00199/zilvoldkinderdijk2_199141a.jpg
Skating in China:
http://blog.trick-bike.com/__oneclick_uploads/2008/01/ice_skating_beijing_2.jpg

You should start a business renting sledges to the Chinese there;)

I'm also wondering about skating in the nature of Scotland, are there enough freezing days without snow? Snow is usually preventing ice to grow thick and smooth. I know Scotland has a lot of rainfall and the winters are not dry and super cold, right? Except in the beautiful mountains of course! Is it possible to skate on the huge lakes there?

Wow, thanks for the detailed response, very interesting :).

At home in Scotland the lakes freeze over occasionally but usually it's covered in wet slushy snow and too dangerous to skate. Some idiots always fall in every year (and the same here in Sheffield)! Maybe high up in the mountains it's safe enough, but climbing is much more popular.

In the UK the ice rinks are normally full of chavs (unsure how translatable that word is :P) but maybe yesterday's Chinese take-over was because of the novelty - they weren't all that good at it! And it can't be coincidence that student life here is much more recreational than my impressions of it in China!!

When I was in Shanghai I went to an ice rink, although it was a little smaller than the ones we have here. They also have an indoor piste for skiing, although it was closed for refurbishment.

As for the UK, the one nearest me isn't too bad, chav-wise, which is surprising for South London. There's also an outdoor one at Somerset House during winter, but it's always absolutely packed, and you can barely skate. The last time the Thames froze was during Victorian times...

Edit: Oh, and when I was in Harbin, I don't remember seeing ice skating, just ice and snow sculptures... The river was absolutely frozen over meters thick, and huge chucks of ice were being cut out of it, presumably for the sculptures. They did have go-carts on one frozen lake inside one of the sculpture parks though.

Haha one reason of my long response is that this winter we had a few weeks in Holland where we were anticipating the first 'Eleven Cities Tour' since 1997, but it JUST didn't happen. I guess as I'm living abroad I was much more into it than I would normally be, and I still feel a bit disappointment that it didn't go on. It has such a long history and millions of people (also all over the world) participate or come to watch, it's like Brazilian Carnival but then a bit colder!!;) Also the people from North-Holland there are so nice and down to earth, just living day by day and so open to anyone, it's one thing I miss when I'm in Beijing.

Anyway, that's that, haha!

Yea climbing in Scotland is just awesome my cousin said. Sheffield is also really nice, as well as its surroundings, that Peak District National Park next door, have you been there? When I was there someone gave me and my gf a ride back to Sheffield, very lucky as it was already dark in the forest, I was so stupid to use Google Earth to chose my path for that day, lol. These paths were not exactly public paths, but it's definitely worth a visit there, just follow the people!

This is where we got lost I remember http://www.panoramio.com/photo/42157619
Looks spooky but other parts of the park are not.

Yea there's a lot of difference between Chinese studying in China or in Europe, I have witnessed it with my gf in York. First of all many students are better off from the higher middle class seems, and I think they're just so happy to get rid off their parents for a while, even though the parents will still call them at any time of the day everyday to ask about their study and do general pressurizing:)

@Byzanti
this winter it was really cold in England wasn't it? But the Thames still won't get frozen... I guess it's because of all the garbage and dead bodies drifting around?

This year we had a very late winter! Generally, the UK doesn't get as cold as the Netherlands/Germany etc, due to heat from the Gulf Stream...

PS. The dead bodies have a negligible effect on water temperature ;p.

Here in Taiwan it isn't popular. But just like all other fun activities, when people do it, they are extremely serious and dedicated. So the somewhat empty rinks are only used by people with excessive amounts of expensive color coated name brand equipment. Most sports are like that here though. A Canadian friend who plays hockey here tells me that all players in his casual adult league are ranked with stats and such. He says its way more serious than Canadian leagues though the skill level is much lower.

@Elwin: The Eleven Cities Tour sounds amazing! I'm sad to hear that it couldn't be held this year though. If the crazy cold snap in Europe wasn't enough then it doesn't seem like there's much hope of it being held very often.
This winter I skated on a natural frozen lake for the first time ever (Lac de Joux in the Jura mountains of Switzerland) and it was like a dream come true.
That photo of "skating" in China is hilarious! By the way, are 溜冰 and 滑冰 interchangeable? 滑冰 is the word I've always used.

@junglegirl, thats a good point - Pleco says 滑冰 is ice skating and 溜冰 is roller skating. I hope that the title of my post doesn't turn out to be the wrong one!

Hmm, interesting, but I wonder why 溜冰 would mean roller skating when it still has the character 冰 in it?

True, and MDBG gave me 溜冰 when I was checking this post before posting it. Hopefully someone has some insight!

My gf says 旱冰 is used for roller skating and that 滑冰 and 溜冰 both mean ice skating. But 滑冰 is much more common. 溜冰 can also be used for roller skating but it's real dialect. So basically you can forgot about using 溜冰 because it's rather unclear and rarely used.

旱冰, I love that! Though I think 旱滑 would have made more sense.

We've got an indoor rink here in sunny South China too, at the TeeMall in Guangzhou. Great place to beat the heat.