Brief updates: weather, friends, TV, movies, transport

WEATHER: June serves up pleasant weather where I live. July and August are unbearably hot and humid, but June's [usually] mild rains, known as the plum rain season, make for bearable temperatures. I'm trying to get out as much as I can before it becomes too hot. Today we had torrential rains instead of mild rains, but that's not common.

FOREIGN FRIENDS: Most of my foreign friends in town are leaving for the summer, but will be back in the fall. Chinese friends will still be around though, most of them anyway.

TV VIEWERSHIP: I get CNN International and Fox News on satellite TV, so for the most part, I hear the same news you do. I usually watch CNN in the morning (Anderson Cooper, et al) and Fox and Friends in the evening. (I'm in a different time zone, remember?) The toxic, argumentative political atmosphere bothers me though, so lately I've had have to turn off the TV often to maintain peace of heart and mind.

MOVIES: I don't watch movies much, but I watched the movie "Lion" on the airplane a few weeks ago, and I loved it. It is about an Indian boy who ends up being adopted by a family in Tasmania, where I once lived. The boy arrived in Tasmania the same year I did, in 1987. The movie is a tearjerker.

TRANSPORTATION: Bamboo Forest is opening more and more subway lines, and it makes life easier. When it rains and I have to get out, I stress out trying to plan the best way to get where I'm going and back. Taxis fill up with passengers during rainstorms and vacant ones can be hard to find; e-bike travel is not a great option; I'll get wet walking to and from the subway station, and sometimes at the other end, my destination is too far from the subway station. Buses seldom go where I want to go, so they are ruled out quickly. If you've always had a car, you've probably never had to think about this kind of thing.

Hope you've enjoyed these random updates!

The Weather

View from my balcony. The tall buildings in the distant mid-left look much, much bigger in real life.

The "plum rain" season of May and June has finally given way to the steamy days of summer. From now until the end of July, we have forecast highs of 100 degrees Fahrenheit every single day, with the heat index running anywhere from 114 - 121 degrees Fahrenheit. 

First the rain and dangerous lightning storms hindered gatherings of friends, and now it is the heat. No one gets out unless it is absolutely necessary, like to go to work or buy groceries. Since most people, including me, rely on pubic transportation, and getting to said transportation requires lots of walking and waiting, it becomes dangerous to be out. The humidity is the killer.

Usually by the middle of August, the humidity drops dramatically and it is just normal summer heat. I'm looking forward to that time, when life will start to get back to normal and the electric bill starts having lower numbers on it. 

Death by sunshine

The leaves are turning fall colors, but not in the way they are supposed to. So many trees suffered through the heat wave. My living Christmas tree met an early death. So sad. :-(

This is in my apartment complex, or that's what I call it anyway. Everyone in this country who lives in a city lives in a high-rise building like this; families own their own units. There are no apartment complexes like in the U.S. where you rent an apartment from the management. You can only rent from an individual who owns an apartment, and you find them through real estate agents. I guess it is more like the condominium concept.

Trunk envy

Just remember ... someone always has it worse than you. And often times, I am that person ... that person that makes you feel good about yourself and causes you to appreciate all that you have as part of your comfy American/Australian lifestyle. :-) Haha!

This was my life this week.

(Top photo) I went grocery shopping at a French-owned chain store that somewhat resembles Super Wal-Mart. I put the two biggest and heaviest bags in the space designed to park my legs. Another bag hung over the left handlebar. Because there was no place for my legs, I had to keep them elevated all the way home (30 minutes through crowded bicycle lanes). By the time I got back, my legs hurt like I'd been riding a horse. Seriously, I have arthritis or something, so it is very uncomfortable.

(Bottom photo) I went across town to a home furnishings shop. It is about 45 minutes from my place, and requires going through the most crowded part of downtown. I was hoping to get home before rush hour, and before it started raining -- I succeeded this time, but my timing is not always so great. On this shopping trip, I had two bags in the leg area and one bag on each handlebar. Very awkward. Luckily the big white bag between me and the dashboard was a big pillow, kind of like a safety air bag that has already been inflated.

If I had wanted to go to another store while I was on that side of town, I would have been out of luck. I would have to make another trip on another day. Hopefully a day when it wasn't raining. Each trip usually ends up taking 3-4 hours. Shopping like this is wearisome and time-consuming. And both trips were taken when the heat index was around 110°F, as it has been day and night most of the summer.

So, just be glad you've got a trunk, or space in the back of your SUV, or whatever you have. And I'll take heart that I have a super-trendy e-bike with lime green tire rims that is far better than a bicycle with a tiny little basket attached to the front!

Feel free to comment if you really do have it worse than this. :-)

More of the same

Three bronze children try to pull an ancient Chinese coin down the sidewalk. Not sure why. Cute though. Not surprisingly, the only people out on the sidewalks this summer are fake ones.

I asked my local friends if they wanted to come over last weekend. They said it was too hot to get out. So it is not just me. This summer has been the hottest one I've ever lived through, and the hottest one on record for this area. It is has put a temporary hold on almost all social activities and outings.

When I lived in West Texas, the temperature would sometimes get up to 114°F. That was the actual temperature on the thermometer. And I remember days of miserableness.* But I think it lasted a week or so, not all summer.

Here, this summer, the thermometer temperature has gotten up to 104°F, but when the humidity is factored in, it is almost always around 116°F. And it stayed that way for two months. I have spent inordinate amounts of time indoors this summer. I don't have a car, so I can only go out on e-bike or foot, and it is blazing hot and dangerous. Even grocery-buying has been put on hold. I went out on my e-bike yesterday and turned around and came right back home.

Technically the heat wave is over. Tomorrow will be the coolest day all summer at 95°F (heat index 101°).

Maybe sometime soon I will stop talking about the weather. But I guess my point is, I have nothing else to talk about. Because I haven't been anywhere, done anything, seen anyone. And my blog posts of late reflect that. :-)

I have another short trip coming up in a few days; maybe that will be fun. Please pray for safe travels.

--
*I love to make up new words, don't you?

A little heart to heart

Dear Summer,

It seems you are an overachiever. You take your job way too seriously. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you really need to stop. We get it. You wanted to break records. You succeeded. Why must you continue on this rampage when you already achieved success way back in July? Yes, yes, I know I whined all winter waiting for your arrival. But I was hoping for the old you. The new you is too harsh. Just give it up. And when you go, please take the humidity with you; the two of you have conspired to add 12-16 degrees to the weather via the heat index. [Sigh.] I do love you summer. But somehow we've got to figure out a better way to work together.

It's not just me. Little babies are wearing watermelons to beat the heat. Did you HEAR ME summer?! Babies are WEARING watermelons. (Click here to see them.)

Furthermore, it has come to my attention that a lot of people walk around inside their homes in their underwear to keep cool. That's fine (kind of weird really) as long as no one can see inside their homes. But I can see inside about 30 homes in the building across from me, and when they walk out on their balconies it is hard to ignore. Summer, this is too much for me to bear. I don't want those images seared into my brain. No pun intended.

I can't take it anymore summer. So, you know, stop.

Please.

Talking about the weather

Some boys I talked with last week pose for a photo.

The news says we're having the hottest summer in the last ten years. That's saying a lot, because it was pretty hot those years too. [Update: We've had the longest heat wave since records have been kept, with over 25 consecutive days with temperatures over 100°F. In 1934, it was the actual hottest year on record for us, but even then they didn't have 25 days of consecutive heat.] Daily temperatures are over 100° with heat indexes around 116°F. My electric bill will be scary this time around, but at least I am able to run my air-conditioner. So many others can't run it all day (if they even have one at all). Today I saw a couple of people wearing wet towels on their heads. We've got two more weeks of this forecast before the weather "dips" into the 90s. Most summers, we have torrential rains to cool things off, but there doesn't seem to be much of that this year.

In related news, Chinese people don't talk about the weather much. Once I asked a Chinese man why and he said they couldn't change the weather, so why talk about it? They talk about food quite a lot though.

Cafe at the park

I keep reminding myself of the bitter cold winters here as impetus to get out while the sun is shining. Not many other people are out at noon when the heat and humidity index is at 116°F, but I am. With all the sunscreen, I'm not sure I'm soaking up the vitamin D the doctor says I need, but it feels good anyway.

Yesterday I rode my e-bike at noon to the far side of town where I checked out a new Italian cafe near the lake. The restaurant is beautiful inside and out. The food was average tasting and over-priced. (I could make the same thing for about 10 percent of what I paid for it. I mean ... spaghetti? Maybe I should have tried the pizza instead since I am less likely to make it at home.)

I love summer ... not because of beaches or vacations or swimming pools, but because I can fearlessly leave the house and have freedom of movement (you know, because for a few short months, I actually don't have to wear long johns)!

Before Brit

Looooooooong before a teenaged Britney Spears started the fad of baring midriffs, Chinese men had trademarked this style as their own. She was late to the party.

Her abs were a bit more ripped than this guy's though, gotta give her that.

At rush hour this evening, almost every major intersection had watermelon trucks like this one, selling the popular melon. There were lots of customers, but I was not one of them -- watermelons are a bit too sticky and messy for my liking. Something about this scene reminds me of growing up in west Texas though. The sign in Chinese and high-rise buildings definitely are not reminders, but the heat index was 116°F today, and the easy-going atmosphere took me back to the scorching hot memory-filled summers of my youth.

Social call

Look what we did today ... Mimi got her annual shots (rabies and whatever comes with them). If you've never taken a dog to a vet in a taxi in 95°F weather in a developing country, you can't imagine the fun you are missing. :-)