And Then There Was Hot

It's been Wenzhou's version of "winter" for a long while. Coolish-warm, dryish, and cloudy with the occasional "humidity-meets-cold" spells which leave my desert-dwelling self shivering. Though it had been becoming more and more temperate as the "Niu" Year progressed, it had remained relatively cool and dry... until now...

Yesterday the weather was fabulous... the type of weather my parents happened to see while they were here, but was absent for virtually all of the rest of the year. Not really knowing the climate here I took it with a grain of salt and went about my business.

Nancy and I decided to go to dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Since it was so close, we just opted to walk. A delicious meal ensued, and afterward we were planning on walking to the Century Mart about a (city) block away.

That's when the rain started. At first just a tiny sprinkle, but rapidly progressing into a gale-force torrent that caught up completely by surprise. Since it was past 10:00, there were precious few stores open for us to duck into, and we were forced (after a spontaneous kiss in the rain) to run as fast as Nancy's high-heels would allow to the front of Century Mart... to find it locked and closed.

We had missed the closing time by 16 minutes.

Fortunately, we found a tricycle (sanlunche) man who was still on-the-clock to give us a ride home... fortunate because by that point the streets had basically become rivers.

This morning I awoke to the familiar sound of rain on a tin roofs. Thinking it would be - as it has been for the past few months - wet, cold, and dark all day, I bundled up and headed off to work in my usual morning stupor. But virtually as soon as I'd stepped out of my door I realized my grave error. It was raining, yes. But cold? Hardly! This was the kind of tropical rain that would actually allow beautiful people to comfortably wash their hair under a waterfall. Warm, soft rain that made my heavy leather jacket, and even my cotton inner-coat seem very over-dressed.

The rain broke up by mid-morning and the sun came out, which only furthered my fashion-out-of-place-ness by warming things up even more! And apparently I can just pack my winter clothes away now, because it's supposed to just keep getting warmer from now until...um... well, December.

I never saw it coming.

(CS)WC Out.

rain fallin' on a tin roof