Bless the Typhoon

Typhoon hit signal number 8 on Friday!

An extract from the hotel typhoon alert information phamplet:
Signal number 8:
"
When signal number 8 is hoisted, we strongly recommend that you stay indoors. Offices, shops, banks and schools will close. Public transport services will be suspended any time, although the Harbour Tunnels and MTR wll still provide safe, easy crossing from Kowloon to HK and vice versa. For your own safety, you should stay in the hotel, draw the curtains in your room and stay away from all windows
"

I had lunch with my customer at about 12pm+ that day, we went back to the customer office at about 2pm. As we were preparing to start the training, one of the customer told us that there is a government typhoon alert at 4pm! So exciting right? 1st thing that came across my mind is: can go back or not? :) The customer then checked with their boss and we were told to quickly pack up and go back. Great!

Taxis were not available, we can see alot people on the streets waiting for buses and others were heading towards the nearest MTR. As the customer site is quite far from our hotel, we decided to take MTR back.

What a mad crowd it was at the MTR, I captured some pics to share:















Everyone was packed like sardines and for me to reach near to the door, it took like 45 mins! Can't believe I actually stood there for so long, it was getting very stuffy and you see people perspire and you see sweat beads on everyone's face ...















Finally got into the train:















So glad to exit from the MTR station and make my way back to the hotel.















Somehow at Causeway Bay where I stayed, I don't experience strong winds at all, maybe its blocked by the tall buildings around this area. We were wondering if its a false alarm or expecting the typhoon to hit later in the night.

When I reached the hotel at about 5pm, alot of shops and restaurants have closed, wife decided to ta bao some cup noodles for dinner. The news interviewed some folks and alot were quite happy to be able to leave office early and when asked what they intend to do, some of them said they will go to karaoke lounges with friends or rent DVDs and watched at home.

You must be wondering why I bless the typhoon, for me, I was supposed to be at customer site at 2am that very night for some upgrade work. So it was good news for me when I learnt from customer that the night work has been cancelled and postponed to a week later. By then someone from the local team will take over so I no need to worry about that anymore! Yipee!

At around 7pm+, wifey and I decided to go out and take a look to see if there are any shops that remains opened. It was a ghost town, the MTR were so empty , when we boarded the subway train, we were like the only 2 persons in that cabin! Wife managed to contact her friends (Singaporeans working in HK) and we decided to visit them. Her friends stayed in a flat, looks like condo, and it was on the 50th floor. While making our way to the building lobby, we have to brace the strong winds and hold the umbrella tightly in case we get blown away :) Once up there, we can really feel the strong winds and there were light rains as well. That was probably the strongest winds we felt that day.

We brought the cup noodles there, chit chat and had dinner. Quite a cosy evening spent.