The past 24 hours

During the past 24 hours the temp has varied between 27 and 34 degrees.

Th humidity dropping to 60%.

Guess which time both my cats chose to climb into bed with me and cuddle up?

16:00, yes, just when I needed two furry hot water bottles.

The sky was lit up constantly and flickered...

Hong Kong Hit By Record 13,000 Lightning Strikes in One Hour

By Nick Gentle - Sep 9, 2010

The Hong Kong Observatory reported 13,102 bolts of lightning struck ground across the city in the hour after midnight. Photographer: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

Record lightning strikes pounded Hong Kong today in its most violent electrical storm, which caused flooding and left people trapped in elevators.
The Hong Kong Observatory reported 13,102 bolts of lightning struck ground across the city in the hour after midnight. That’s the most since such data was first collected in 2005, said David Hui, a scientific officer at the observatory. The storm raged from 9 p.m. yesterday to 4 a.m. today.
Wind gusts of more than 100 kilometers an hour were recorded in Tai O district at 12:40 a.m., according to an observatory weather bulletin. More than 40 millimeters of rain an hour was recorded across the territory during the storm, according to the observatory website.
Police and firefighters responded to flooding in a village in the northern New Territories shortly before midnight, said a police spokesman who declined to be named citing government policy.
Five reports of people being trapped in lifts were received, according to a spokeswoman for the government’s Information Services Department.
The weather was linked to Tropical Storm Meranti, which is moving north through the South China Sea, according Chan Sai- tick, acting senior scientific officer at the observatory. The weather pattern ahead of Meranti caused high temperatures across Hong Kong and southern China yesterday.
“That led to a large accumulation of energy and very unstable conditions during the afternoon,” Chan said in a phone interview. “That energy was subsequently released last night.”

Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport (1925 - 1998) 香港啟德機場

Kai Tak Airport VHHH (1925 - 1998) VHHX (since 1998) "traditional Chinese: 啟德機場" was the world's busiest international airport. The growth of Hong Kong put a strain on the airport's capacity. The airport was designed to handle 24 million passengers per year but in 1996, Kai Tak had already handled 29.5 million passengers, plus 1.56 million tonnes of freight, making it the third busiest airport in the world in terms of passenger traffic, and first in terms of cargo. However extremely busy Kai Tak was located in the city center, the Kowloon City "九龍城" (The city of nine dragons "city surrounded by nine mountains"), around by high density buildings, numerous skyscrapers and rugged mountains reaching an altitude of 2000 ft. with single narrow runway (13/31) very close to taxiway jutting out into Victoria Harbour, and further less than 10 Km is Hong Kong Island, another densely populated area with hills up to 2100 ft. The only way approach to Runway 13 was a sharp 47-degree right turn before and of the same level with the checkerboard (a small hill painted with red and white checkerboard at 1:18) at about 100-meter altitude then align with the runway. Often with strong crosswinds, the airport was infamously difficult to land at. However, due to the same reasons, only experience pilots were chosen for the challenging approach and air crash incidents rarely occur.

The low altitude manoeuvre was so spectacular that crowded streets of people, multi-storey buildings, vehicles and pavements can easily be "touch". I can hear "WOW" or "My God" from passengers when they aware of the home decorations through apartment windows which is of the same level with the aircraft like flickering of televisions even children say "Hi" to them before landing. In this video, you can found the most extremely landing, but these happened several hundred times per day, and was just the real daily life of Hong Kong people.

Thailand

http://thailandholidaynye.blogspot.com/

Before we came to Hong Kong we had a month in Thailand. I kept a paper diary at the time and will gradually transpose it to the Thailand holiday blog above.

Fostering in HK

http://fosteringanimals.blogspot.com/
I have now fostered 26 cats and 1 dog with the SPCA over the past year in HK.
I thought a blog might be of interest, so am blogging from the above address.

Black Rainstorm Warning Signal Special Announcement issued by the Hong Kong Observatory at 3:35 p.m.

The Rainstorm Warning Signal is now Black. This means that heavy rain has fallen or is expected to fall generally over Hong Kong, exceeding 70 millimetres in an hour, and is likely to continue.

Brookside

Living in Brookside is usually lovely. The gentle tinkle of the stream lulls me to sleep.
Here is the stream today...




I've moved everything I own up a floor.

Heather plays rugby

Heather started Rugby in January and found that she loves it.
At school she plays touch rugby, but in her club she plays full contact.
Her club is called Sai Kung Stingrays.
Heather either plays second row (she has a long neck) or on the wing.

The old man is snoring

It has been raining. We are under that yellow bit of the map that is rated at 40mm per hour or more.

A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms

Sungha Jung - Billie Jean Michael Jackson - Guitar acoustic solo - Grea...

Every other cover of Billy Jean I've heard blown out of the water by a 12 year old!

Heather meets Rory Underwood

The Rugby 7's came to Hong Kong and with it the opportunity for free coaching sessions for the kids by the great players of our age. Here is Heather (left) with Rory Underwood.
I am soooo jealous.

Wear a Hat to Work Day

Today is Wear A Hat to Work Today in aid of Brain Tumour Research - a charity close to KGV's heart - here we all are in the staffroom with our hats!!! Please visit http://www.braintumouraction.org.uk/2010/02/wear-a-hat-to-work-for-brain-tumours/ for more information

A Christmas Carol

On 1st November, the day after her birthday, Alexandra auditioned for the school play.
The school were hiring in a professional director to put on a Japanese theatre inspired version of the Dickins classic.
Alexandra passed the audition and got her part - the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come. As well as being a Cratchett family member and a Lost Soul.
The cast rehearsed day in, day out for 5 weeks. We, fortunately, were able to arrange lift swaps with othere mums as rehearsals went on until 8pm during the week and all day Saturday. The last week saw the kids staying behind until 10pm. Needless to say they were exhausted.

We went to the show knowing it was going to be good, but were blown away by the whole body experience of the play. They used the whole hall, balcony, windows, corridors as well as the combination of music and lighting.

Spine tingling.

A house full of cats

We foster kittens for the SPCA. if they are too small or young to be homed, they go to foster carers to gain weight and become socialised.
So far we have had 4 litters of kitties. Tinker Tonker and Tabster were our first back in August. (1st kitties).

Since then we have had Alana, Apollo, Armegeddon and Apolcalypse.
They were frightened and insecure and reluctant to be held. They improved by the time they left us.
Bertie, Bursar, Bryony, Bob and Baby. Such a great litter of 5 baby cats. Very friendly, very much into people. All like little clones. It was not surprising that they were all homes within a week of going back to the SPCA.





























Now we have Charles, Chester and Cherry.
Chester is the fluffy one, and always looks like he has been startled.

The Hong Kong Escalator

The Central-Mid-levels system consists of twenty escalators and three moving walkways - and it runs in one direction in the morning, and another in the afternoon.

Video from the BBC

Rugby Triumph

In December KGV School were to play Island School in a hotly contested uner 18 rugby final. Last year Island School were beaten in the last minute of the game. This year they were keen for payback.
I went along on the spur of the moment, but am so glad to have been there for a wonderful evening's entertainment.
Island School looked very strong in the first half and it looked like disaster had befallen KGV when captain Jack Capon was injured after 20 mins. Fortunately Jack only had to go off for 5 minutes and the team was revived when he returned to the pitch.

Still Island School looked to be coasting to victory until KGV began a spirited fightback. With the game hanging in the balance, Ed St Paul scored a superb solo try to clinch a third successive final win for KGV. The game ended 33-24.

Pictures abound...

Is it cold?

I often get asked "What is the weather like?" Well today it is very cold.
Hong Kong goes from hot to cold every few days, it seems. That is one reason why we have the cold weather warning, even though the min is 10-12 degrees. Lovely sunny days with temperatures in the 20s can be followed by the sudden arrival of the cold monsoon.
A monsoon is a seasonal wind flow due to the difference in surface pressure caused by the differential heating of seas and lands. The northeast monsoon generally prevails over the coast of China in winter while the southwest monsoon dominates in summer.
Basically the cold monsoon brings winds from the Steppes of China and we suddenly feel the cold.

Ooooh, new weather symbol

Though tiny, it appears to be mist or fog. How exciting!