It’s 9:38 am. Outside is literally as dark as night, it’s been thundering for the last half hour, and it’s just started to rain. This looks like being one hell of a storm. Not much in the way of wind so far, though. Oh, and that rain is heavy.
lzh is hiding in the KFC in the Shuangjing Carrefour building waiting for a bank to open, Roubaozi is supposed to be on his way over from his hotel, which is only 50-odd metres away, but he didn’t take the warnings seriously enough and waited too long to leave. I’m sure lzh will wait the storm out in the KFC, but Roubaozi’s going to get very thoroughly soaked.
Reminds me of that afternoon in Changzhou when something similar happened. I also experienced some fairly heavy downpours in Beijing, but nothing that turned the day to night.
I’m sure the umbrella sellers all appeared on the street the moment rain threatened. On the other hand, you’d probably have to buy an umbrella for Roubaozi yourself, put it up, stick it in his little hot hand, and position it above him. Only then would he arrive back at his hotel in a moderately dry state.
Except there was lightning, and I don’t see much sense in running around in a thunder strom with your own, portable lightning conductor in your hand. And Roubaozi, predictably, got soaked. I did try to tell him to leave his hotel and run here just before the storm hit, but he wasn’t ready at that point and so he ran through the worst of it. The good news is he has a perfect day to fly out today.