On Monday night, just as I left the office, I witnessed Singapore rain
in full flow for the first time. Good Lord, it was like the world was coming to
an end!
Singapore never shifts
to daylight saving hours, as the sun rises and sets like clockwork throughout
the year. When I swim at 7am the pink sky is just starting to light up
properly, and by around 8pm you’ll be looking at a fairly solidly black sky,
but on Monday evening, as I left the office to met Nick for a pho dinner and a
quick look around the shops, the world was as dark as it could be, and the
heavens were well and truly open.
I tried to get a
picture of just how crazy the rain here is, but none of the snaps did it
justice. An umbrella and a strategic route through tunnels, shopping malls and
via undercover walkways kept me dry from my head to my waist, but after a ten
minute walk, everything from my waist down was as wet as though I had just
fallen into a swimming pool fully dressed – I have never known anything like
it!
The water runs through
the streets and over the pavement at incredible speed, with most of the streams
coming up well above your ankles. When it hits the road it splashes back up
with such force that it soaks your legs to well above the knee and it runs off
the edge of umbrellas in such constant streams that if any part of your sticks
out around the edges, it’ll be wetter than if you were standing underneath a
power shower in no time at all.
Luckily for Nick, he
can get all the way from his office to this mall via underground tunnels and
the MRT, so he arrived looking as fresh as a daisy. I met him with so much
water in my shoes that you could hear me sloshing up from a fair few feet away,
and drenched to the skin, meaning that when we actually sat down for our dinner
of pho, I had to wrap myself up in a pashmina to protect me from the freezing
airs of the over enthusiastic aircon.
Dinner took us less
than an hour, and having spent another 15 minutes or so seeking out a birthday
present to send to Rae in the US, we left the mall and walked home in what can
only be described as a overly, fairly mild evening, with almost no evidence of
the rain remaining. The weather in this country is crazy!
All I can say is that
it’s a good job I love being outside in the rain. Sure, getting soaking wet and
then sitting underneath an aircon unit can leave you feeling a little bit
chilly, but there’s something fairly fabulous about being out in the rain when
you don’t have anywhere important to be. I just dread the day I get caught out
on the way to a meeting!
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