Monday, January 18, 2010

Well, yesterday the temperature hit 109 degrees, and it felt like being inside an oven. Today it's supposed to be only a degree or two cooler, and everyone's complaining about the heat and saying this is unusual. I sure hope so, cause I don't think it can get much hotter. Having said that, up north a week ago the temperature got up around 120, and lots of black cockatoos simply dropped dead from the heat. What's weird is that we went hiking on Saturday, just the day before it hit 109, and it was cold enough to wear sweatshirts for a while in the morning.

Whoa, Bill just walked in, and it's only 2:30 in the afternoon. He said the a/c at work went out and it was over 100 degrees in the office, so everybody went home to work. Our poor old a/c is struggling to keep things cool, but not doing a very good job, it is hot, hot, hot.

Well as of January 1, all the shops and grocery stores in Subi, where we live, have been given the O.K. to now stay open until 9:00pm during the week and to open for a few hours on Sundays as well. This is what everyone has been waiting for, yet there was an article in the local paper, written by the mayor, pointing out that so far, the change has not been well-received. At first I assumed she meant there were not a lot of shoppers out late, taking advantage of the extended trading hours, but instead, she was referring to the fact that most of the shop owners are refusing to stay open late, except for the two grocery chain stores. When she interviewed some of the shop owners, they said that in fact, they would prefer to open later and close earlier. Just seems like such a radical difference from the US, where store owners seem to want to extend their hours as much as possible.