Cheap Umbrella VS Monsoon=a very wet Blogger

Turns out, Shenzhen has an intense rainy season. Initially, it felt like a relief, you can feel the temperature drop maybe five degrees once the rains begin...but, if they come in the morning, watch out once the sun comes out!By noon the whole city has turned to a steamy greenhouse and one can barely see the tops of the skyscrapers through the sticky haze.

These tropical seasons feel so different from the seasons I knew growing up in Minnesota. The seasons seemed to ease into one another gradually, but here, one morning we woke up to a green sky and pounding rain and the sun didn't come out for a week. I also feel a new admiration for these tropical plants which endure so much hot sun and then a torrent of rain. They are quite hardy creatures.

The locals were all quite prepared of course. As I've mentioned, they use umbrellas to keep the sun off, but the onset of the Monsoon season called for a larger, sturdier umbrella. I quickly realized I was unprepared when my tiny nylon folding umbrella was sucked up in a gust of wind, violently whipped around and ferociously pounded into a gutter. It was a shadow of its former self and, of course, so was I. Now completely drenched in a matter of minutes, I had to run to the corner drugstore for a new cheap-0 pocket umbrella and then back to our apartment to change clothes.

All of this led to an online umbrella search which revealed this lovely "brolly" which is quite expensive but looks like it could stand up to this extreme weather and still be pretty enough to keep the sun off in the summer. I love the green one with the pink handle. Now I just have to convince Eric that a $100 umbrella is a good birthday present. Still haven't found any of those pretty paper parasols though. More to come...