Deluge

I was at an office building last weekend when a thunderstorm and downpour began. I went down to the lobby and saw the guards trying to keep it from being flooded. What a mess! What a miserable job they had that day. I had to wait half an hour before the rain slowed down enough for me to walk outside. 

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!

Getting there isn't half the fun -- it's no fun at all

I am about about to tell you something that will earn me no sympathy at all: I only have to set my alarm two times a week and I only have to make morning commutes those two days. One of those days is Sunday.

I am about to tell you something that ought to earn me sympathy though, if you have any feelings at all: I have no car. And I live in a place where it rains a whole lot.

Here are my options for getting across town to meet with like-minded people on Sunday mornings, and how those options are affected by rain:

Commute Option #1

E-bike. My preferred transportation is my e-bike. When my meeting is over I can roam around and take in different scenery. But when it rains, this option is really terrible. If I only had to go a few blocks, I could endure, but all the way across town? No way. The rain poncho worn by e-bikers is not efficient at keeping rain off your face and out of your eyes. I would arrive looking and feeling like a drowned rat. Ask me how I know. I am not good company when this occurs.

Commute Option #2

Subway. Subways are nice enough, but getting to and from the subway stations is the hard part. From the time I leave my door to the time I am at the subway platform takes at least 20 minutes by foot. It is a rough 20 minutes though, dodging cars, bikes, street vendors, crazy people on a narrow street. If it rains, it takes slightly longer and is more dangerous.

Once I arrive at the subway station platform, I may have to wait 10 minutes between trains. The subway trip across town takes 20 or more minutes. When I get to the other end of town, I have to walk another 10-15 minutes to get where I'm going. You do the math. This gets to be obnoxious, especially the part about walking in the rain for so long. And the math.

Commute Option #3

Taxis. Taxis are nice. Someone else does the driving, you just sit in back and relax. But finding a taxi is hard in good weather, and might-near impossible when it is raining. And if I do get lucky and find a taxi, then when I get to the other part of town, I may not find a taxi back home. I have waited for taxis for an hour or longer before.

If I am choosing the taxi option, then when I leave home I go to the main road, to the south of where I live. If I can't find a taxi, usually it is too late to go with a back-up plan -- the subway is the opposite direction.

Rainy commutes are very stressful. I had a rainy taxi commute this past Sunday.

Here I am waiting for a taxi. I'm on the curb between the bike path and the main road. See my umbrella at the top of the photo?

 E-bikes zoom by. 

Buses zoom by. 

Not a taxi in sight.

The grass probably really is greener on the other side

Most summers, it rains a lot due to typhoons. The grass gets really high and is seldom mowed. I measured last year and the piece of grass I chose to measure was 5 feet long. No kidding. The mowers were hired to cut grass once a month at most, and sometimes it was less frequent than that. Mimi would go walking in the tall grass and would disappear from sight.

This year, they mowed the grass once in May, and then we had a heat wave. The grass appeared to have died and everything became like dust. There was nothing to mow. The bald spots on the lawn made me sad because I felt it was unlikely they would plant new grass in its place.

Then in the last week or so, we've had some rain and the dirt spots are filling in with grass the color of spring green. It didn't die after all, it just was hiding out under the dirt!

The photo above shows their method of mowing the grass. They use weed eaters to cut the grass in the entire apartment complex. It gives the lawn an uneven burr haircut. And many times they fail to pick up and bag the long cut grass, so it smothers the grass underneath it. 

Chinese people don't have their own personal lawns, and those who are not maintenance workers have never had to mow a blade of grass in their lives. It's not quite an art form here. They are magnificently artistic at landscaping with trees, rocks, flowers, etc., it's just the actual grass part that suffers from inattention. 

Every now and then I get a yearning to take over the lawn at my apartment complex; I think I would enjoy making it look nice. But then a nap beckons me and I get over it quickly. They wouldn't let me do it anyway.

Rain dance

I have a special talent, a knack for always visiting Shanghai on a day when it is raining. Oh yeah, I checked the weather forecast ahead of time, but it was completely wrong (they must hire summer interns to do the forecast).  But once you have tickets, it's hard to change plans. So here are my photos of my trip to Shanghai on Saturday. Above is the Pudong side of the Huangpu (whahng-poo) River. The tall futuristic-looking tower is the Pearl Tower. In this picture it looks much taller than the other buildings, but in fact, it is not. Behind it are the three tallest buildings in China, at least partially obscured by the clouds. One is still under construction. They are in the photo below too.

Above is the Puxi (poo-shee) side of the river, the main part of Shanghai, the Bund. These buildings were built a century or so ago. I didn't lighten the photos, because I wanted you to see the same dark view I got on this cloudy day.

Boats on the Huangpu.

Need rain? Invite me over. It's pretty odd when you consider I didn't even own an umbrella the first 21 years of my life, but these days rain follows me like a little lost puppy.

Gonna be a long rainy season

I miss the good old days when a thunderstorm hardly caused her to blink. She'd shrug her shoulders in her doggy sort of way and continue to munch on her bone. Something happened in the past year -- I don't know what -- and now she is traumatized by the mere sound of rain hitting the window. Panic attacks. She whines, pants hard, paces the floor. Her heart feels like it is going to beat out of her chest. So, in the middle of the night, I get up to console her. On the sofa.

Poor Meems.

Is it normal for her to acquire fear as she ages? She's 8 and a half now. I try to make her feel better, but she is mostly inconsolable.

The dark clouds photo above was taken at 3:55 in the afternoon yesterday. By 3:56 a heavy downpour was in progress. We don't get tornados, just heavy rain and lightning.

It is like this today too, and for almost every day in the 15-day forecast. Rainy season isn't going to be much fun with Mimi's phobia going on.

A rainy day in my neighborhood

Another rainy season has begun. They call this one Plum Rain Season. The rains are gentle. I went out when the rain let up and took a few snapshots. Just thought I'd give you a few pics of what I see when I step out into the great outdoors. (Mimi and I cross that bridge in the third photo on almost every single walk we go on, three times a day...what a beautiful view we are blessed with!)

Spring's rainy season

Saturday afternoon after meeting up with my local friends at a teahouse, I walked alone through the cold, slow spring rain. Rainy days are about the only days you can walk along a path and not run into crowds of people, so I walked as slowly as possible, to take it all in without interruption. The pink buds on the trees and the bright green hue of newborn leaves on the trees made the otherwise gray day seem bright and hopeful. 

I thought back to the old days of walking through the rain in the Middle Kingdom … when walking through mud to get to work or biking through potholes of undetermined depth made it more treacherous than inspiring. This is better.

Having grown up in a desert (where, you know, seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day), I usually have mixed feelings about rain and the depressing clouds that accompany it. It's not going away though, so I'm trying to learn to like it.

Our second rainy season comes in mid-summer, during typhoon season.

 

iOSx photos

Mud Mobile

I'm somewhere in Thailand. My dad found where I am on a Google map, but I don't yet really know where I am. It is off the beaten path, and there is no public transportation. Last night I went to rent a motorbike for 24 hours. 

The young women renting out the bike were worried. "Do you know how to ride a motorbike?" they asked in doubt. They obviously have no idea who they are talking to. A motorbike has been my main mode of transportation since 1998. 

I parked the bike at my place of lodging overnight. The torrential rains and thunder came overnight (of course, it always happens that way). When the rain let up, I went out by motorbike. But the rain started as soon as I got out, and I got soaked before I had gone only a few yards. I went back, changed clothes, and waited a couple of hours for the rain to stop again.

Then I went to the nearby national park. Please rid your mind of "national park" notions such as park rangers, nicely paved roads, or a visitors center. The only thing this national park had that national parks back home have is this: someone to take your money in order to enter. Inside, it looked like no one had paid attention to it ever. In fact, a few times it felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.

I heard there was a pretty beach. But I couldn't find it. I asked a young woman where it was. She pointed in some direction, I drove that way, and entered a Buddhist temple area. When I saw a orange-robed monk, I thought I had entered in error. So I went back out the gate.

I went down another road, and drove through a village. I saw a lady cooking at her outdoor kitchen. I smiled at her, but she didn't smile back. 

I went as far as I could go down the road. I hit a dead end. I could see the ocean, and a beautiful coastline beyond the end of the village, but there was no road to get there. 

A village man understood my dilemma and pointed for to me to go behind his house. So I did. There were no paved roads, just ruts that had been rained upon recently. The ocean was too close for me to give up now. I drove through the ruts. 

Soon I was hydroplaning in the mud. I was so glad that for the first time since 1996 I had decided to wear shorts in public today. (More on my neon-white legs some other time.) 

A few times I drove down the grassy "median" of the waterlogged dirt road, at full power, with my legs stretched out. You know, like I was 13 years old or something.

I couldn't decide if I should just roll with this and have fun, or if I should start to worry about how I was going to get back out of this place.

Then finally, there I was, on a beautiful stretch of ocean that was totally undeveloped.  This was not even the beach that I was aiming to go to today, it was one I had accidentally discovered on my own. I could see a fishing boat in the distance, but there was not another person anywhere else in sight. I wanted to stay for a long time. But it was thundering. I wasn't at all sure I was going to get out of there under the present conditions, and another downpour would surely only make things worse. So I went back to my motorbike. 

And it didn't start.

"You've got to be kidding!" I said to the only one listening, God. But then I turned the key in the ignition to the "on" position and it started. Oops! 

Between my bike and the mountain back there, you can't tell by the picture, but the entire area is a virtual swamp.

I returned the same way I had come, of course. The mud made a Jackson Pollock design on my white legs. 

As I drove back through the village, the lady in her outdoor kitchen had a humongous smile on her face. I'm pretty sure it was a look of relief. She probably felt responsible for my well-being, and was glad to see the white woman had found her way out.

I got back to the Buddhist-looking place, and I drove in again. I used hand signals to ask if I could enter, and the monks smiled and told me I could. (The monk pictured here was smoking, and had puppies playing at his feet.) I drove ahead and found another easily accessible beach that had restaurants and shops (civilization, so to speak). 

I decided to eat.  

I gave my leftover chicken pieces to a skinny dog. As soon as he ate up the last bits, I turned and found two of his dog friends hanging out under my table. I wish I had saved some for them.

The dogs were dirty and scratching like crazy. I kind of wanted to take them home and give them a bath, but then I realized that what I really ought to do was just take myself back and give myself a bath.

So I did the Australian thing and drove back, on the left side of the road, like they do here. I saw lots of interesting things on the way back. I'll tell you about them later though, because this is kind of long. I'll stop for now.

(Dear Mom and Dad, I promise not to do anything even remotely dangerous or weird  tomorrow.)

By the dawn's early light

It's hard to believe I was up early enough to see the dawn, but sure enough, I took this photo yesterday morning. (This morning, we're having a tropical downpour instead, so it's a good thing I took this picture yesterday when I could!)

Since I had to be in Thailand anyway for meetings, I decided to stay an extra five days for vacation at a beach. It's a nice place. A non-profit runs it for people in my line of work who need a budget-friendly getaway every now and then. For me, it costs $25 for lodging, double if I use air-conditioning. I'm not one to sweat unnecessarily (this is the TROPICS), and I do want to be able to sleep at night, so I'm using the A/C. They serve family-style meals, at cost, so those of us staying here don't have to fork out big bucks for restaurant food.

The location is very much off the beaten path. It is not a tourist area, it is a beach village area. Villagers sleep outside under huts, not because they don't have homes, but because it is too hot to sleep inside the homes.

This spot has awesome Internet service. I'll try to upload more pictures later. Hopefully my plans for today are not going to be rained out, but if they are, I'll post more today.

Just another rainy day

It was just another rainy day today. Dark clouds hovered, noisy park hanger-outers stayed inside for a change and I took a long nap.

My trip to America begins five weeks from today. Be seeing some of you soon.