update

Dear all,

Hi! I hope this post works... I have been struggling with our Internet connection in the past weeks, and my last few attempts to post news have failed! (I am getting sick of writing blog entries and having them get erased because of my Internet failing/freezing...)

Anyways... more rain here as we have the tropical storm Fengshen off shore... as the Hong Kong Observatory reminds us:

PLEASE BE REMINDED THAT: THE TROPICAL CYCLONE SIGNAL NO. 8 HAS BEEN ISSUED. THE RED RAINSTORM WARNING SIGNAL HAS BEEN ISSUED. THE THUNDERSTORM WARNING HAS BEEN ISSUED.IT WILL REMAIN EFFECTIVE UNTIL 9:30 A.M. TODAY. THE LANDSLIP WARNING WAS ISSUED AT 8:10 A.M.THE SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF FLOODING IN NORTHERN NEW TERRITORIES HAS BEEN ISSUED (http://www.hko.gov.hk/wxinfo/currwx/current.htm)

Between 6:45 and 7:45 am we had 29mm of rainfall in Shatin- to give you some idea of the intensity! Some areas of the region have had more! I love the details of this site, and recommend it if you are curious about the details of our weather... the humidity is always about 97-99% but other aspects do change. And you have to love the great expressions we use in Hong Kong to talk about the weather- 'red' rain is pretty bad, but 'black' rain is worse... we had that a couple weeks ago.

The past few days were even sunny-ish, amazingly, and we went to the beach on an outer island (Cheung Chau) on Saturday, but for almost a month before that it rained every day, all day, and we even have quite severe flooding and landslides. At one point the road to the airport even had to be closed because of flooding, and some people even lost their lives.

And now the rain is back! Hopefully we will have no further problems! I am sure many of you heard about the disastrous ferry sinking in the Philippines? We pray for those families affected, and hope that we won't have any similar incidents in Hong Kong. This storm has already taken enough lives.

Life in the tropics! :)

Love to all,

Katrina and Ryan