Enough Already!

Shek O

source: SCMP

It was already the 5th time this year that we were pounded with torrential rainfall and squally winds while the typhoon signal #8 had to be issued over night. Typhoon Hagupit (who thought up this name?!) turned out to be even scarier for our location than Nuri and during half of the night I was expecting our windows to come bursting into the living room. It was reported that Cheung Chau and Tai O were affected the most and the images shown in the evening news looked pretty disastrous. The night before we were experiencing sweltering temperatures of 33 degrees after midnight, the weather has been acting really crazy lately. Pollution readings have been extremly high and I can't wait for cooler temperatures to move in. Feng Shui masters predicted already in january that Hong Kong will be hit by 7 typhoons this year, I hope they were wrong and we're done with them!

On another note - the visa restrictions we had to suffer from since the Olympics will finally be lifted in mid October. It was a real hassle for expats traveling through China on business and I am sure, hawkers at Lo Wu Commercial Centre in Shenzhen will also be relieved that the taitai's will finally return ;-) Until now we were restricted to double-entry visa for the past 3 months which was annoying and expensive when you had to travel on a regular basis. Applicants also had to show hotel and return-flight bookings to receive a visa in the first place.