It’s 2015 and I’m in Cebu, Philippines for work in late October.  This trip thwarted my Halloween costume (research said it wasn’t celebrated in the Philippines and the costume involved a heavy trench coat), caused me to miss the annual Halloween party yet again, and had my schedule all over the map – it varied from day to day so that I could train all the different shifts in the office.

My morning and early afternoon are wide open this day, since we’re going into the office to see the later shifts that day.  After hotel buffet breakfast – with my daily waffle covered in fresh mango – I feel restless and so I wandered over in the warm and humid day to the mall that is adjacent to our hotel.  A little bit of time at the mall, but it’s too early for anything but cafes to be open, I meandered back towards the hotel.  In the mean time the sky has gone solid grey, even though the temperature hasn’t changed at all.

A couple of raindrops started to fall. Decided for sure to head back. Made it most of the way through the open area between the mall and hotel to have the rain pick up quickly. That’s when I heard a wall of water approaching and picked up the pace… got under cover just in time for some serious rain to start.

And as I stood on the patio, safe and dry, the wind began gusting and rain like I’ve never seen came pouring down. Fascinated, I watched it for a while.  This utterly confused the hotel staff – they asked me if I was trying to get to the mall, and I tried to explain that we never saw rain like this where I was from. Eventually I felt bad about confusing them, so I headed back to my room, relishing the thunder and sheets of water cascading past my window until it was time to leave – by which time there were no signs left of the rain.

Tropical weather, gone as abruptly as it had arrived.