Typhoon Nuri Closes in on Hong Kong

We're currently in a T9 warning here in Hong Kong, and we're planning for a direct hit by Typhoon Nuri sometime in the next hour. The center is currently 20 km southeast of Hong Kong, and is heading northwest at about 14 km/hour. For the weather geek who sometimes reads my blog, you can find a history of the typhoon warning system in Hong Kong here.


(We're the "*" that is practically underneath the typhoon.)

It hasn't been too bad yet, at least from my 8th floor vantage point. I went out around noon for an hour's walk and found Wan Chai nearly deserted. 7-11 was open, as was the supermarket and a few restaurants. You would never believe this was Wan Chai at noon on a Friday. This neighbourhood is one of Hong Kong's busiest, with a dense mix of retail, commercial and residential buildings. Buses and trams have stopped running, there is hardly anyone on the streets, and there are just a few taxis around.



It's gotten darker in the 3.5 hours since then, and I'm thinking it's about time to wander back downstairs and see how windy it is. I came back soaked last time, and it really wasn't even raining that hard. But I think that will change as the day goes on, at least looking at the radar. It does appear that the worst part of this typhoon is yet to come, after the eye passes.

Hong Kong is at the center of this screen shot, which was taken a bit after 3 this afternoon. The satellite image doesn't show this typhoon as having a well-formed eye, so I probably won't get to go outside during the eye passage to look up at a clear sky, as I did when Supertyphoon Paka hit Guam in 1997.

Back in Hong Kong

I've been researching and writing feverishly for the past month - something like 48,000 words over the past several weeks - to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. As such, I am now well-versed on corporate legal issues from Canada to Chile, and pretty much every country in between.

The writing was in preparation for a six week business trip to Hong Kong, where I will now edit the chapters of six or seven other writers who have been covering the rest of the world, and coordinate the editorial content of a book which last year was close to 1,500 page.

It's great to be back, and I'll write more. I'm horribly jetlagged right now, but wanted to post a few photos of my home for the next six weeks.

Dining room

Bedroom

Closet

Kitchen

The kitchen is nice. It has a dishwasher, microwave, small refrigerator, lots of cupboard space and full set of pots and pans, but no rice cooker, which seems odd (and inconvenient) considering I am in China. I will see if I can scrounge an extra from any of my co-workers for the next few weeks.

Shelly and I were wondering what kind of view I would have. We guessed, mostly correctly, that my view would be of the neighboring buildings. The floor plan, which we checked out ahead of time, shows four windows, plus one in the bathroom, so I thought there might be a chance of catching a corner of a good view out of one of those windows.

What I got was not even as good as a view of the buildings across the streets, though I can see those, too. If you've been reading this blog for long, you might remember a photo from shortly after we moved to Hong Kong of the building across the street from us in Happy Valley shrouded by green fabric stretched over bamboo scaffolding. I now know what that view looks like from the inside:


Also out my kitchen window, I can see one of the workers' water bottles. I'm thinking I should refill it in hopes of making him wonder how it got refilled, but neither the rope holding it nor my arms are long enough.

A Brief Trip West

Posted by Shelly

We recently traveled west. Greg flew to Iowa to visit his parents and I went to Colorado to visit mine.

While in Colorado I baked with my niece and nephew. We made Beach Cupcakes. [Recipe: Make a white cake. Add food coloring so the cake is a nice tropical ocean blue. Fill cupcakes ½ way, place a gummy fish is each cupcake, top with additional batter. Bake. Mix white frosting. Add food coloring to half of it so it matches the cupcake. Frost half of each cupcake white and half blue. Put crushed cookies on the white frosting (to represent sand). Fold bubble gum into a lounge chair, put on sand. Add a gummy life safer or gum ball as a beach toy. Top with a cocktail umbrella.] While certainly not the most delicious cupcake I have ever eaten, we had a fun time making them.


After a few days, Greg arrived in a van his parents have been trying to sell for the past year. They graciously lent it to us in exchange for our trying to sell it in Maryland. My parents are in the process of downsizing and since the new house does not have a formal living room, they agreed to let us have their dining room set as long as we came and picked it up. It took several hours to load the van, but eventually everything fit.




On our road trip across the country we stopped in Lawrence, KS (where we met), visited friends from Hong Kong that retired to a town in Missouri with a population of 322 people, and enjoyed a great Indian dinner with cousins in Ohio.