Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Tropical Downpour















You would think since I came from a rainy place like Vancouver I would be prepared for the rains in the Philippines. Although it rains quite frequently in Vancouver it's nothing like the rains here. In Vancouver you can wake up in the morning, look out the window and get a sense of what the weather will be like throughout the day. Here it's different. Today I woke up, looked out the window and saw hot and bright sunshine. On seeing the beautiful weather I decided to grab a book and head down to the garden for a read.



Within five minutes I opened the door leading to the garden and saw this. The rains here don't last long but when they fall, they fall fast and hard. In most cases due to proper drainage the water disappears as fast as it fell. But sometimes...










..especially down some city streets the water just collects and causes flooding. The water on this roadway was close to three inches deep. Once we reached the end it got deeper and we were forced to drive elsewhere.

I can tell that flooding is a way of life here since many of the street vendors continued selling their food even though they were standing in three inches of water. Did they have customers? Yes, they did! Three inches of dirty rain water and the customers still wanted to buy snacks. Amazing!


With the rainy season comes the snails. And boy are they huge! The snails they have here put the French escargots to shame. To get a sense of the size of this snail go look in the mirror and imagine a snail slithering across your forehead. That's a big snail right? Well yes, it is. But keep in mind that this Buddha's head is TWICE the size of an adult human's head. THAT'S A BLOODY BIG SNAIL!!




This snail requested that I add him to the blog as well.

Damn Filipino snails, such attention grabbers (but awesome singers)!

4 comments:

Aimee said...

Mabuhay to you too, Mr. Snail!!

Unknown said...

How come I didn't see any snails when I was over there? Did you guys hide all the cool stuff?

Aimee said...

Evan,
That's because our garden was not built when you were in Manila.
So, when are you and Aleese coming to visit us? :-)

Anonymous said...

Hey, I would wade through 3 FEET of puddleage to pick up a six pack of balut to go!