When I was 12, I went to Winnipeg, Canada for a month of gymnastics training. It was in November, towards peak winter. Everyday, we would monitor the temperature to see how much we needed to wear. Well, it was definitely many layers everyday.

Our coldest day was -21 degrees Celcius. I remember on that day the wind was particularly strong, too. On less cold days, the temperature still dipped below zero even in the daytime. The locals told us Winnipeg is the coldest part of Canada, and is also popularly known as "Winterpeg". We had to agree.

One day, while we were indoors going through training, it was snowing outside. It was our first time seeing snow and we were excited. We begged our coach to let us out for a few minutes and she agreed.

We dashed out of the gymnasium, putting on our winter jackets, gloves and shoes, and started buidling snowballs to throw at each other. We also decided to build a snowman. I remember I was so proud of my first ever snowman that I wrote a letter to tell home all about it. Everyone was excited to see my snowman from pictures I had taken. Only to have a big laugh when they saw my tiny snowman, measuring only about 10 inches tall, and in a triangle shape instead of 2 round blocks of snow one on top of the other.

Since that day, it snowed quite often, almost on every other day. I hated leaving footprints in the snow when we walked along. It's so beautiful when untouched. White, smooth and so pure.

This is me, freezing but happy.