Well, it looks like Guangzhou’s stifling spring season may have passed. After a brief burst of typhoony weather right before Rachelle left for the summer (she’s safely back in California), the mugginess subsided and for the past couple days we’ve had clear blue skies. Well, as long as you’re looking up. Look far enough down the road and you’ll still see some smoggy haze, and it’ll likely get worse if the rain doesn’t come along and keep it down every so often. So, the air’s drier and cooler, the sun’s brighter, I’m done with classes, and Rachelle is away for two months. Looks like there’s nothing left to do but explore!
But not today. Yesterday I made a market run while the Ayi was doing her thing, and to kill some time I wandered along a road to see where it was I had gotten lost previously. I found a lot of nifty things to take pictures of, and completed a nice big chunk of my neighborhood mental map, but the sun was pretty damn hot. Even though I thought I had drunk enough water, the heat and sunshine caught up with me, and I stopped sweating and got a headache, and some nausea, and I went to bed early and woke up to my alarm. And after breakfast and a brief Skype with Rachelle, I couldn’t stay awake and fell asleep again until noon. But I’m feeling better, and when I went out to buy razor blades I was sweating normally, so by tomorrow I should be back to normal. Hooray!
Oh, yeah, one more note. There is a little switch on our bathroom wall which, when activated, turns on a water cooler. If you leave it on, your electricity bill will skyrocket, but you do need it for short periods of time in the summer. The water tanks on the roof get extremely hot, and I could not take a shower even with the hot water turned off until I had chilled the pipes for around five minutes. Yeah, pretty toasty around here.
Happy Fourth of July to everyone back home!
