The FLOOD!

 As you may know, it rarely rains in Beijing, and especially in the last few years (I'm sure you've heard the news reports of drought over here).

So last week when it finally did rain, it REALLY rained, and the city flooded.

This is mostly because Beijing's drainage system.... NOT good.

Not because it's clogged or old or etc - it just DOESN'T exist in many areas, or it's totally inadequate in most.

I guess they decided they could design it for the most common rains in Beijing? It usually rains short and only a bit, so anything like an average NY rain will cause small lakes in the road.

A flood like this... aiyo....!

At first I thought the images were fake, but they ARE real! They are from the Chinese Twitter (Weibo).

One of my staff was unable to get a cab because they were either all taken or literally waved her off, saying they didn't want to drive in this mess and they were just going home.

She couldn't take the subway because her line was flooded.

So we had a dinner, hoping it would get better... and after dinner we remembered... Beijing's drainage system... not good.

After about 2 hours looking for taxis in the rain, she ended up sleeping in a hotel next to the office... and I walked home. :)