Yangshuo - Day 3 - The word of the day, kids, is SWEAT.

Perspiration. Freaking perspiration.

Forget that. Freaking weather. Remind me not to travel in China in the summer again, if I have any choice about it.... I really hope I can come back next time in the fall or something. C'mon PhD to postdoc transition.... Let's see you work some magical timing skills there.

Anyway, though I may have made some unpromises to folk in the past to never complain about the weather, I rescind this temporarily as I'm not in the gorgeous 19degree Vancouver climate.

So, I don't want to hear any of this "hah, your complaining it's cold in Vancouver was so funny -thanks, the laughing helped me defrost my frostbitten face" out of you. Especially as you're in Vancouver, and I'm in 32C PLUS humidity Yangshuo county.

So, 32C, not actually so bad, but as all my fun friends and family in Ottawa know full well, it's the humidity that makes it OHSOFREAKINGBRUTAL. And the humidity is worse here, my friends.

Allow me to demonstrate, with a short series of bullet points:

1. When washing clothing here, the water comes out brown. This is not only from the dust. This is also a wonderful mixture of dust and sweat.

2. This is 'apply deodorant at least two to three times per day' weather.

3. Immediately after showering, approximately 5-10 minutes of sitting in a non-A/C room, with a fan, results in enough sweating that you feel obviously sticky and gross, to the extent that I would choose to avoid vinyl furniture at all costs.

4. It only rains in short, thunderstorm-esque POURING bursts. This breaks the humidity. For about an hour.

5. When going out walking, very slowly, in the shade, along the riverbank, at 8:30AM... one can sweat through the back of one's shirt in under an hour. We're talking about "I can wring the sweat out of this garment because it is dripping" kind of sweat. Enough to soak my bag as well, if carried on my back. Enough to give shorts stains. Enough that you can tell on my front where exactly my bag was sitting, because there's a shoulder bag strap SWEAT stain. Enough to be DRIPPING with sweat. From walking. In the EARLY MORNING.

6. When eating dinner, outside, at 7pm, 10 minutes of sitting may produce a significant amount of sweating. Dripping, sweating.

It feels sometimes like all I do here is sweat. I lose count of how many litres of water I drink in a day. It is absolutely disgusting, and as ABSOLUTELY gorgeous as this place is (the scenery, AB-SO-LUTE-LY GORGEOUS), I wouldn't live here if you paid me.

And, oh look, we leave on Tuesday to go to Hainan Island (mostly for some Monkey business), where it is supposedly EVEN HOTTER.

Insanity.

Anyway, I have to go drop an obscene amount of money on a plane ticket now, as I did not plan ahead quite enough to know when we were leaving... So, I bid you adieu, until we meet again.

As you might be inclined to say, "smell you later". =P