Monsoon Season? wait a second...

Minus 4 months of my junior year of university when I studied abroad in Ireland, I have lived my entire life in California. I think it's fair to say that [most of] California has very mild weather compared to other parts of the US, let alone the rest of the world. While I've dealt with blistering hot summers and temperatures dropping far enough for puddles to freeze, I have never had to experience living in humidity, snow, temperatures below zero, or torrential rain.  Compound that background with my most recent residence in San Diego for four years where I have more than a few stories of soaking up the rays on the beach in January, I am one weather-sheltered Californian girl.

Koreans take pride in the fact that their country has four distinct seasons.  I have heard this more times than I can count - most recently it has been when I'm dripping with sweat just from walking from my apartment to the school at 8am - an hour I strongly believe should not have the capacity to make me sweat unless I am out for a jog. Nevertheless, I generally walk into the teachers room a little damp and have to take a few minutes to let my body cool down. More than one teacher has asked "Rachel, is it too warm for you?" and what I want to say is "Yes. That is a ridiculous question to even ask. You can see the sweat on my brow just from walking slowly at 8am" but instead, I reply "I am just not used to humidity - where I am from, it is hot, but you do not get sticky" and then they inevitably tell me about the four distinct seasons Korea experiences and that we are in summer/monsoon season currently. 

Being so weather-sheltered, I will admit that before I moved here I had to wiki what a monsoon season even looks like.  Lots of big words later, I have decided that it can be shortened to "seasonal winds and changes in precipitation causing heavy rain and possible thunderstorms." Apparently in Korea that doesn't mean that the temperature drops much but that it stays hot and muggy while it's pouring rain. lovely. 

As you probably have guessed, this rambling has a point. It has moved into monsoon season here in Daegu and hit with full force this past weekend.  It has been raining/thunder/lightening off and on for the past few weeks, but Friday it started raining and did. not. stop. Now, I don't mean a little constant drizzle.  I'm talking thunder and lightening so loud/bright that it woke me up in the middle of the night. Pouring rain that sounds like little tap dancers are stomping on top of your umbrella if you make the mistake of stepping outside.  Add quite a bit of humidity, and you have an idea of my weekend weather.

Because of this, I spent most of my weekend hanging out in my lil apartment watching tv online/studying for the GRE/skyping and sleeping.  I attempted to venture to Costco to meet friends on Saturday.  Getting to Costco takes me 10 minutes walking, a 30 minute-ish subway ride, walk outside to a bus stop, wait at a bus stop, and then a bus to Costco. It is a big ordeal even on a cloudless day.  Even with rain jacket, umbrella, shorts and shoes, I was soaked within 2 minutes of walking to the subway, literally said out loud "forget this" and went back to my apartment. helpful hint: never wear converse in the rain.

Don't worry, I braved the rain later for dinner and bowling downtown and then for church on Sunday, so I wasn't a total hermit this weekend.  I'm not telling you all this to whine about the weather (well maybe a little bit) but I know most people are curious about my life here and this is a major part of it recently! Not only will I have experienced a different culture and all the quirks that go with that, but I will have experienced 4 distinct seasons by the end of the year.  However, while that's great, I've decided that humidity and monsoons are awful and I will avoid them for the rest of my life if possible.

For now, at least I know now that I won't melt in the sweltering humidity...I'll just sweat! I give props to those who choose to live in this weather long term!