Soon it's gonna rain.... Errrr, POUR!!!

I was texting with G last night in Florida and she commented on how it was raining in Florida. I made the mistake of saying it hadn't rained in Hangzhou since my first couple days here.



I went to bed only to be awoken by thunder and lightening. The thunder sounded so strange. I was dreaming out something only to awaken by a gong. The gong was thunder. It was around 2am. I jumped out of bed and went over to my windows. Yup, pouring rain. I didn't think much of it and went to bed.

6 am alarm goes off. I open my curtains and it's SO pretty out!

First time I can clearly see details on the mountains.

It may not look like it from the picture but it was amazing. I was eating breakfast when it started raining just lightly. I wasn't happy because I don't have an umbrella yet. I'm dressed and ready to go when I get a text from Kelly saying school has been postponed until 9am and to check the website. Apparently, all of Hanzghou is flooded. Didn't look like it from my view. Around 7am. I get another text saying the teachers still need to be at school by 7:30 cause kids will get there. 

I'm fine with that since I'm dressed. I walk through my complex, out the convenient store, and up to the street and the stop. The entire road is COVERED in water. People are taking off their shoes to wade up to their ankles to get to the bus station across the street. Cars are driving well up to their wheels in some areas. I was flabbergasted. Here I am in sneakers. No WAY am I taking off my shoes and wadding. 

So I head back home to change into my flip flops. I meet some of the teachers who are also in the same dilemma. As we all walk back to our apartments, the HIS pulls up to drive us to school. We all cheered!!

The roads were crazy. Since there's so much construction by the school, some parts were worse than others. There was a good 5- 10 inches of water in some parts. Josie said it floods often but not usually during school. There were a lot of traffic jams and Evan was making up a funny song about the flood and school as we waited. 

View from the van. I would have had to walk across the water in the distance.
It was pretty deep. 

A lot of teachers had walked through it. I was glad the van came to get us. I had about 3 kids at 8, but more stragglers came in closer to 9. Even parts of the campus were flooded.

View from my classroom window. Flooded streets.

Things were a bit wonky, but we got back in our schedule and had a great day. It's amazing how muggy it got thanks to the rain. It really reminded me of Florida. The rain dried up so fast. You'd never know it was flooded out there less than 12 hours ago.

Still a gorgeous day.