sunsets, or the lack thereof

three more things i'm still not used to:

1) there are no colors in the sky at sunset. at least not like the huge fiery streaks the bleed across the sky like we have in the philippines. the sky here is either white or grey. on sunny days like today, it's a pale blue. some evenings, it's a weird otherworldly blue like the color of your favorite bareta laundry bar, plus 5,000 volts of electricity.

2) there seems to be no sunset at all. one minute there's still light, another minute it's dark as heck. and no telltale fire in the sky to signal the difference.

3) there's still daylight here at 7:30 PM!!! the first time i noticed it, i kinda freaked out. i thought it was still 5 PM (because in my mind, 6 PM means sunset and fiery skes) but i looked at my watch and it was past seven. laugh all you want but i felt betrayed by nature: here, i can't even trust the sky to tell me whether it's night or day! i'm starting to see an upside to this, though. i was told it can be daylight here till 8 PM, which means i can go up to the roof and read until said time. yay.

* the first photo is the view from my southeast-facing window. the view above is sunset seen from southwest-facing window. see? no bright colors there. but still nice, no?