Rainy Season

Rainy season is here!  After a couple of weeks of grey and humid, last week was beautiful!  The sun was out.  The humidity was low.  It was about as nice as it gets.  Saturday the clouds came back.  This time they brought the rain.

Rainy season here gives monsoon season in Arizona a run for its money.  Unfortunately, I believe rainy season is going to last a whole lot longer than monsoon season.  The skies have been pretty grey since Saturday.  The sun has poked through a time or two for maybe 15 minutes.  We will go from a grey sky to a black sky in a matter of minutes.  The wind will pick up and then the torrential downpour comes.  It usually lasts for 15-30 minutes before easing up.  Then it's back to grey sky until the next black one runs through.  Many times we get the thunder and lightening with the downpour.

I've been trying to time my dog walks accordingly.  Yesterday we were caught in one of the torrential downpours about halfway through the walk.  By the time we made it home I looked and smelled as much like a wet dog as the two dogs did!  Wet dog is the new smell of our house.

The rain reeks havoc on the roads.  The sides of the roads fill with water.  People start triple parking to try to let passengers out as close to doorways as possible.  Horns are honking and people are losing their patience.  Monday I was on the bus downtown and a taxi had broken down in the rain about three car lengths after getting off the dam.  The road is so narrow and curvy at that point that it very nearly caused both lanes to come to a full stop.  My lane was able to inch by very slowly, but the other lane was beginning to back up onto the dam.

I've learned to carry my shoes for CrossFit along with an extra pair of socks in a water proof bag.  By the time I make it downtown to the box my shoes and socks are completely soaked.  The nice thing is that when I'm leaving people don't know if I'm sweaty or just soaked from the rain:)

It's a good thing that I don't worry too much about my hair, because it never looks good!

With the rain comes the humidity.  I had to turn the air con back on in our house.  Even with that and the dehumidifiers running we can't keep up with the humidity in the house.  The kitchen is in a constant state of dampness.

With the rainy season comes the colds.  Everyone seems to be fighting something.  Last night I was at the high school for a presentation and half of the students were coughing.

I cannot end my blog about the rainy season without bringing up one of my favorite things about Hong Kong...the umbrellas!  Yes, the umbrellas are back.  I nearly lost an eye on my walk to the MTR today:)

Dave is told that we will have occasional breaks between now and when we leave in June.  We'll take any sun we can get, even if that means steam and humidity with it.

So now I can officially say that October through December are the best times to visit.  Any other time will be hit or miss.  January and February were fine, just not always clear.

As Dave says, there's a bad season just about everywhere (not San Diego or Hawaii) and we did have a very mild winter.