The weather in Shenzhen, China – actually across the entire region – has been dark and dreadful as of late. It’s not winter anymore, but the March/April rainy blahs can get you down. When May arrives, like magic, there will be sunshine and blue skies (depending on the air pollution index).

For now, it’s dark, damp, and not pleasant. I am not alone: Helpful photo guru Craig Ferguson lamented on twitter about his grey days in Taiwan. The lack of light combined with “the pressures” of life has left me feeling lethargic and moody. Maybe there should be a spring hibernation? Sleep through the rain?

edit: Yesterday was so humid that when I stepped outside, I thought for a brief moment, I was in Thailand.

And… I have a “work apartment” and the couch I am currently surfing. I find myself waking up and not knowing where the hell I am. Yes, I’ve been residing in two apartments for quite a while – but the new couch arrangement has thrown me for a loop. I leave the bathroom light on to quell the panic I feel as I groggily try to realize where I am.  After I move (again) I will still face this fun. Maybe in six months life will return to normal…

Pacific typhoon season starts in June – something to look forward to. When I was teacher typhoon day cancellations were a welcome respite to the monotony, and celebrated with much jiu. I don’t think I will find the same fun in my current position.

I’m willing to take bets – I’m fairly certain that Mrs. Stevo will go into labor during a typhoon. Why? Because that’s my life. Baby Stevo will probably be born in the back of a taxi stranded on a water-logged Shenzhen  street.

On the plus side – I’ve decided that Leica would be a great name for a girl, and maybe Elinchrom for a boy.

Some stuff to read: Wandering Educators did an interview with me, take a look and read about the start of this site and my random thoughts on being an expat. It’s a great site – read it regularly. Following in the interview vein – Asian Ramblings was featured with other prominent Asian bloggers on CNN – take a look.

While it has been dreadfully chilly, the afternoon sun from my “sniper’s” nest at Momo Bar has provided some wonderful light. Two days of sun? I can’t believe it. Last week it was hot – shorts-weather. This week? I’m wearing a toque and long-johns. There’s no insulation in south China homes – plain old cement walls. If it’s 40 degrees outside, it’s 40 degrees inside. Often, it’s warming outside than it is inside. I think the Chinese weather has developed bi-polar disorder and needs medication and therapy.

It was wet too weeks ago, I don’t mean rain or assorted precipitation, I mean wet.  Like every tile surface was covered in water. I don’t know the physics behind the phenomenon. My Chinese friends believe it is water in the air. My belief is that warm weather after ten days of temps just above freezing, caused condensation to form everywhere. Please, correct me if I’m wrong.

I witnessed the downside of the freakish wetness in my second apartment. I hadn’t been there for three weeks. I noticed as I prepared to sleep Monday night that the sheets smelled decidedly funky. Upon closer inspection I find lovely black mold spots on my pillows and a strange connect-the-dots pattern on a sheet. Lovely. I went home the next day, linens in hand, ready for the washing machine and Mr. Sun.

Chinese Lunar New Year is also called Spring Festival. It should be called Almost Spring Festival. I spoke with a Canadian in Shanghai earlier this week – he opined that Canada was warmer than China. That’s not enough to draw me back but is certainly food for thought.

I’m off to Hong Kong tomorrow to a Strobist shoot with some local photographers and 3 models. The public wharf in Kennedy Town, Hong Kong Island is our location. Photos of Asian models to follow.

I mentioned earlier about China and the spring rains. Shenzhen is as dry as a bone most of the year, if you discount the humidity that makes walking akin to swimming.  Not so now.

The last week has seen sunny mornings: An hour or two of waking pleasantness. The skies then cloud up and big fat droplets fall as fast as the tears of a kindergartner with a skinned knee.

After my Saturday afternoon nap I headed to the coffee shop, intent on getting shots of scurrying, umbrella-bearing folk. I was not disappointed. When the rain stopped, I decided on a foray to a local electronics store. Unlike my area, it was raining in the nearby downtown area. Umbrella-less, I returned home very wet. A foreigner walking in the rain without an umbrella gets a lot of stares. At least it wasn’t cold.

Nonchalant, and noticeably unhappy, in the rain.

I don’t mind getting wet. As a younger man I spent close to five hours lost in the Canadian woods during an autumn storm. After wading through beaver ponds, shivering (because someone thought they knew a shortcut), rain doesn’t bother you all that much. This drives Mrs. Stevo mad as her umbrella is ready at the first hint of precipitation.

The rains will end soon, I hope. Shenzhen is famous for cosmetic surgery. I’m considering asking a surgeon to upgrade my body to include gills.

The weather forecast: Rain, followed by thunderstorms, followed by more rain.

It will be wet this week. I thought we had escaped the spring rains; That they had decided not to pay us a visit this year.

I was wrong, as I often am.

Umbrellas won’t protect you from the onslaught. Your clothes get wet from walking to and from work. Wet shoes and socks are a fact of life. Daily wardrobe decisions are made based on what is least wet. Washed clothes never quite dry.

It matches my current state of mind perfectly. Pathetic fallacy is sometimes more than a literary device.

Wish me luck. If nothing else, I will be clean.

A rare glimpse of a blue sky in Shenzhen, Guangdong, PRC. The blue sky is there, but more often than not, covered in haze.