Earlier this week, a friend of mine from ShangHai was in BeiJing on business, but she managed to get a free evening to spend with me. We ate together at a XinJiang restaurant, Uigher-style, with kebabs and everything. We went with two friends I've made from our Chinese Corner class and we spent several hours talking. After that, we joined my classmate Andy to go out and eat chuar, 串儿, basically, more kebabs. We were sitting in the dusk of 9:00 PM, drinking beers and talking about many things when the sky began to ripple with lightning in the distance. Being the curious sort, we watched it for a bit, then went back to eating. This happened a few more times during our conversation, and we began so see several of the outdoor restaurant cart owners setting up tents. Luckily enough for us, the tents were up pretty quickly. While we were chatting, in a matter of seconds, the weather went from cool and clear to drenching rain. We dived under the questionable cover of the tents, saving our small stools as well. The rain continued for about 10 minutes, worming it's way under the cover of the tent and still managing to drip on people. Being the hardy sort, we were willing to wait it out, and then resume our merriment.
While waiting, I got a good look at the street, and when I say it was pouring, it felt like what I imagine rainforest rains do. Part of the street was up to about 3 inches or more deep of water, and as cars would go by, they made waves in the lake collecting at the entrance to our small alleyway. Andy began telling us a story about the previous year where he'd been caught in this type of rain, only that time the rain continued for 10 hours. Cars were submerged, he was trying to run in the street with water up to above his knees. Sounds like fun, to me.
Anyway, it remained off and on, steady rain after the initial opening up of the sky, but we still had a good evening under the tents, and we parted with smiles.
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