The rainy season is here...

I like rain, if I can be inside and listen to the rain pattering against the window and feel the cool air through said window if it doesn't rain hard enough to have to close the window. But when it rains in Hanoi, I begin to miss Sydney roads. Water may come up to my ankle on the UNSW Main Walkway and the wind will render any umbrella useless, but at least it's just water and it's clean. I don't think there's anywhere you can go in Hanoi in the rain that will not result in mud covering your shoes. (Future reference to self, new Converses do not make good shoes in the rain.) Seriously, where is all this dust coming from that the moment it rain, it has to become a mudslide on the road?

There's a principle to riding a motorbike in the rain in Hanoi, that if you are riding next to a car (or even just another bike) you might as well go straight into a puddle yourself. If you go into the puddle, and you go slowly enough, you can probably avoid getting splashed. If you avoid the puddle, the vehicle next to you will splash you, no matter what. 

I'm not sure what it is that other people get to eat that I don't, but there are apparently some obvious facts about traffic that just escape some Hanoians.

1. If you are stuck in traffic on a two way street, going into the lane going in the opposite direction will not solve the problem, it's only going to make the traffic jam worst.

2. If you are stuck in traffic, blowing the honrn non-stop will not help. It will only give people around you a headache. 

The mentality behind some people's inability to grasp the second fact, especially, just baffles me. To avoid a rant, I will just say this: Vehicle horns should be banned on the streets of Hanoi. Whoever invented this thing obviousy didn't consider people's ability to abuse it.

My boss tells me I'm the only Vietnamese he knows that can't ride a motorbike. Sometimes looking at the roads I travel on everyday, I don't have to wonder why. Bleh.

Today seems like a good day for Nanowrimo...

...but wait, it's not November yet.

Well, I suppose autumn weather has finally showed its face in Hanoi, when calendar autumn is already half gone. For the first time since early last spring, I suppose, I was cold as I opened the window to check the temperature outside since the wind was blowing the trees every which way.

Well, maybe cold isn't really the right word, even for Hanoi standards. Cool is probably more accurate. It was only cold when you've just got out of bed at 7am in the morning after having gone to bed at midnight the night before (I need my 8 hours and this was one short) on a Friday and ten minutes earlier, you were still in bed contemplating the pros and cons of calling in sick when you've just came back from a one-week leave.

But seeing as I am writing this at work, I did manage to drag myself out of bed and get to work.

Still, standing on the bus, it occured to me that today would probably a good day for Nanowrimo. That is, a day of not wanting to go to work, sleeping in, getting up, turning on the computer, staring at computer, doing various other forms of procrastination like cleaning up the closet, reorganising computer folders, checking mail and various other things that may or may not need to be checked on the internet. And I suppose in the middle of all that, some writing would get done.

It's such a perfect Nanowrimo day. The sky is gloomy outside, it's going to rain any moment, it's much warmer inside curled up with a cup of tea.

But it's not November yet. And work awaits. More's the pity.