Typhoon in Hong Kong

As I write this water is battering against our new apartments windows as a level 3 typhoon warning is hoisted. We have been given the keys to our apartment early so have started moving the luggage across. Shopping in Ikea saw us the proud owners of a bed that will be delivered on Wednesday, and a sofa which will unfortunately not be available until the end of the month, We have to move out of the serviced apartment on Tuesday, so Tuesday night will see us testing out the existing single beds as our bed will not be there. We have checked the length of them to discover that they are just long enough for us to stretch out on. Richard had his dreams come true and has purchased a 42" flat screen TV. It will of course fill the apartment, but it is what he has wanted for so long so we will have to deal with it. It is due to be delivered on Tuesday. I am looking forward to seeing just how easy it is to get things delivered, whether they actually turn up on the day and hour specified unlike Peru where you could be waiting for a couple of days. We also needed to sort out internet, cable TV, and telephone. After checking out a couple of possibilities we finally settled on the one that gave us the fastest Internet and then we had to try to agree on the stations we wanted on cable. Things got a little too techo for us when they started talking about our land line and what telephone we wanted. I had assumed we would have a run of the mill telephone, but no it is the state of the art one with a screen that you can watch TV on or video conference with others with the same type of phone. Video conferencing is completely free with those on the same provider as are all local phone calls. Line rental is around $20 so it is definitely a bargain. Again some confusion set in when looking at possible mobile phone options. Richard wants to get an iPhone to go with his new mac (he insists it will all sync a lot better with his new mac book but I think being gadget boy he just wants to upgrade and pass on his older technology to me). He is going to have fun choosing a plan from the many of offer. I however will just be getting the basic which is around $10 a month and gets me 1800 minutes of calls!!!!!!

On Monday I spent the entire day cleaning the apartment before beginning to unpack. I also had some time to begin to check out what is available in our estate. We are living in South Horizons on the island of Ap Lei Chau which is to the south of Hong Kong Island and connected by a bridge. Apparently this is the largest estate in Hong Kong, trust us to pick the most populated place. The population density of Australia is around 2 people per square kilometer, the average world population density is around 47 people per square kilometer, the population density of China is around 120 people per square kilometer so can you guess what the population density of Hong Kong is? No one I have presented this problem to has even got close. It is close to 7000 people per square kilometer. Now keep in mind that around 75% of Hong Kong is wooded with the entire population of around 7 000 000 living on the remaining 35% of land which is situated basically around the edges of the island and you soon realise that in reality there are a lot more than 7000 people per square kilometer of livable space. Our estate has 33 tower blocks, each tower is 42 stories high. There are 8 apartments per floor. Now you do the maths. If there are an average of 3 people living in each apartment (as they are 3 bedroom apartments then this is likely), then that means there are around 1000 people living in each tower. Multiply this by 33 and you get 33 000 people living in an area that Richard insists is around 1/4 of a square kilometer. Sounds horrific doesn't it, but so far it does not seem nearly as busy as it should. Most people use public transport so there is not a lot of traffic going around the ring road, just a lot of buses that are clean, air conditioned and extremely regular and on time. In the centre of the estate there is a 4 storied shopping centre with a large supermarket, food hall, restaurants, speciality shops, beauticians and hairdressers, a couple of coffee shops including a Starbucks (yes we are already well known here!!) medical centre etc. There is even a market with lots of cheap stalls, and also a wet market where you can buy your fresh meat, fish and vegetables. The fish is so fresh that it is still alive. They store all the different fish in plastic buckets, still swimming around. You can apparently get them to kill and gut it for you if you want. I will look into this a little later on. The estate also has numerous out door swimming pools and one indoor pool with spa and sauna, a couple of fitness gymnasiums, tennis courts, badminton courts, table tennis facilities, a golf driving cage and a golf putting green, (Richard is very excited!!) basketball courts and a foot ball pitch. You hardly even need to leave the place!! And we get a lovely view of the entrance to Aberdeen harbour and the South China sea from all the bedrooms and living room windows.

Monday night 6pm and everyone had begun to baton down the hatches, locking up shop and securing whatever possible as typhoon warning 8 was hoisted. Now it is time to stay inside in safety. All day there has been a steady flow of boats returning to their moorings in preparation. The harbour is full. Typhoon Koppu is spinning around the ocean south of Hong Kong collecting velocity on a steady path towards land. If the wind direction stays the same we will not receive a direct hit. The sky has opened up and it is literally bucketing down. And this is still not what they would call black alert rain. I cannot imagine how much rain must fall to qualify a black rating. The wind has definitely picked up, you can feel movement in the building as it is buffeted by the force of the wind or is this just my imagination. By morning there is plenty of evidence that a typhoon has passed by. The harbour is full of litter, trees have been uprooted. Friends who live in Stanley report that the pier has been destroyed, whole granite slabs uplifted. By 10am Tuesday morning the warning has been lowered to 3 meaning that now we are free to leave our buildings and head off to work. School has been cancelled for the kids, but if the staff can make it in they should try to do so. It is a good opportunity to get some planning done without the distraction of children. So by late morning Richard heads off to work. Whilst the typhoon has passed the wind is still very strong especially around our apartment where it is obviously being funneled and on leaving the building I was nearly blown off my feet. Our lovely door man struggled to hold the door open for me as I set off to the shops to get necessary supplies, with hair blown in every direction and tightly grasping my top to actually keep it from flapping around my face.

As I finish the final touches of this, Mr Internet man has arrived. I am about to go on line!!! Yeah!!!! Connected with the world once more, oh what a wonderful feeling.

Oh no, the news is not good. There is a problem with the cabling. They have had to leave with only the phone connected and a promise that someone will phone later!! I need Internet!! After some investigation it seems that they have run out of cable connections in the building and will be sending someone to try to fix this within the week! Another week without Internet will be almost unbearable, but of course there is wi-fi at Starbucks, so looks like I have every excuse to go there on a daily basis!

Now for some good news. I am sitting here watching 2 men put together not just my new bed, but the new sofa that we were told would not be arriving until the end of the month. So now we have something to sit on to watch our new TV even if we still do not have cable!!