Hujan sudah datang...

Ah, the afternoon storm clouds are descending on the city. Though I grow sick of the rain, I never get sick of watching the sky turn dramatically dark in the middle of a perfectly sunny day. Accompanying the clouds, big thunderbolts of lightning. And the shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... the sound of the downpour as the clouds open up and the rains come down by the bucket. After over a year here, I'm more or less convinced that the rainy "season" on this side of Malaysia is a myth. Kind of like saying Malaysia has musim panas or summer. It's always hot, though sometimes it's hottER and it's always raining, though sometimes it's rainIER. It's really just a question of whether it rains for an hour or four hours.

Ah, we're right in the middle of it now. Loud claps of thunder, the sound of the rain pouring down. Love it. :-) Open up the windows and feel the fresh breeze on your face. Smell the rain. You know the smell of rain? Growing up in MI I guess I assumed the smell of the rain was the same everywhere. But not so. When I moved to Australia I got my first taste of the smell of desert rain. At first, a strange thing... but as you learn after some time living in the desert, there is nothing so refreshing as the smell of rain in the desert. In Arizona, the smell was different again, and oh how I loved the summer monsoons. The first time you smell the rain rolling in after 8 or 9 long months with no significant rain... it's indescribable. Dust and dirt and desert wildflowers, all greet you riding the wave of the first cool breeze you've felt in months. And here, it swings in like Tarzan of the hutan. You can smell the dank, dark jungle, as if you're standing right in the middle of it. The rainforest around KL may be mostly gone, but the rains remain, watering the new condominiums and shopping malls springing up around every corner.

I love the sun, but I'm a conisseur of the rains.