Rainy Season

Here in Suzhou, we have entered the rainy season. I have never lived someplace that has a rainy season. Sure in the midwest it rains a lot in the spring, but from my understanding it will rain every day for about 2 weeks once the rainy season starts (it officially started on Sunday, I think). Does two weeks count as a rainy season? I guess the word "season" makes me think of months of rain, so I am extremely grateful for just 2 weeks! Then after the rainy "season" it gets steamy! Apparently, that means that it gets very hot and humid during the day and does not really cool off at night. Doesn't that sound like fun?! Thankfully, we have AC in our house and the apartment! And I know that we will be going to the pool daily. :-) Today it rained this morning and cleared up. I took the opportunity to bike up to the store because we were out of the essentials - milk and toilet paper! One of the challenges of biking to the store is not buying too much because you have to get it all home with you on the bike! I was very close to having bought too much. I had the toilet paper strapped in the babyseat on the back and 3 bags piled in the basket. Though the Chinese can really pile things on the bikes (I could seriously take lessons from them)! I think though that I would feel off-balance. Anyway, speaking of bags, recently in China they have started charging for bags at the grocery store. I had actually brought several bags from the States (you know those canvas teacher bags? at least that is what we call them in the Wilcox household). They have been put to good use! I am not sure if the reason for charging for the bags is to promote reusing bags (good for the environment) or just to reduce costs. My vote would be for the latter. Well, I am off to do more laundry. I think that a challenge of the rainy days will be that it will take longer for my laundry to dry on these wet humid days. I suppose I will have to get creative on where else I can hang the laundry.