Surviving...

Its not that nothing's going on.  But honestly, I'm sitting here thinking, Its' been a week since we've blogged -- but what have we been doing?

Surviving is a good way to put it.  There's not much else you can do when it's 35 C (95 F) outside and the humidity level is more than 80%.  We're realizing that the thermometer can say 32 C in our living room but there's a huge difference between 50% humidity (when you feel like you can handle this) and 95% (when you feel like the air is so heavy, it will crush you and you're gonna die).  To give the Sacramentens an idea (ok, don't get mad at me for calling you that -- I don't know your official name and I mean it most affectionately!), the humidity level barely gets to be more than 30% for you.  Now I want you to imagine that its 30 C (86 F), the humidity level is 80 - 90%, you're on an over-crowded bus with Chinese people who don't wear deodorant, and its 8:15 in the morning!  Add a few hours, a few more people, bring it up several notches on the thermometer, throw in about twice as many cars and three times as many electric bikes on the road (turning a 1/2 hour trip into an hour) and you can understand what I mean, when I say we are surviving.  We do have a/c and have been trying to save it for the worst of days but considering how much we're actually at home, we don't get to use it much.  If only those dang buses didn't go so slowly!  If only those dang electric bikes didn't think there's a whole other set of road rules just for them, the buses wouldn't have to go so slowly...

On a daily basis, we'll have to take the bus at least twice but often more than that, especially now that walking to our appointments has become rather out of the question (unless one intends to die along the way or at the very least, show up looking like a drowned rat due to perspiration). We usually stop home for lunch before heading off to the next thing.  I often identify with the Wicked Witch of the West (Elphaba for you Gregory McGuire fans, such as myself) in that I feel like I'm melting only I wish someone would poor a bucket of water on me! Ok I'm done with my little whinging session.  Everyone in Australia will have no sympathy for me I know -- just hoping the Americans might feel a little bit sorry for us doing it so hard out here...(read her voice is dripping with sarcasm).  Whoever said that our city retained an average temperature of 28 C year round seriously needs to go back to meteorologist school and not conveniently forget to mention the average humidity level!

On the bright side and seeing how I read 'Pollyanna' many times as a kid -- I'm sweating so much, I have to pee less often when I'm out reducing the need to find the nasty bathrooms.  

Ok.  I promise I am working on a more fun post but I don't have all the photos I need for it yet!  We'll be calling it "Chinglish"...stay tuned!!!