We had our first typhoon (which may come from the Chinese word for Great Wind which is pronounced almost exactly the same) warning last week. A T1 signal means a typhoon is within 800km of Hong Kong, T3 means within 400km and T9 basically means a direct hit. We had a T3 last week which manifested itself in conditions I would describe as "fairly breezy". Anyway, it passed off without incident - T9 apparently means a day off work. The guy in library in the office said there is a Chinese saying that if a typhoon misses you're in for 3 days of rain - thankfully, that particular saying wasn't fulfilled last weekend - sunshine all the way.
You get the feeling that Hong Kong wasn't quite designed to be inhabited. The actual space you can build on on the island is tiny (which is no doubt why they've been reclaiming land at a fair lick), typhoons blow through and its hot and humid so everywhere is heavily air conditioned. Basically, very clever things are done to make it safe and inhabitable and I'm glad they did - it's great here!
I used to love Typhoons when I was little - it meant no going to school, wahoo...
ReplyDeleteI used to live in the NT, in a place called Hong Lok Yuen, you should go to the country club there. When I was younger I used to love it... although an even better experience, on the food front at least is the Floating Restaurant. That is a must!! Let me know when you have been there :)
take care,
alexandra