Crazy Rain, Bubble Tea and Beers

In the spirit of catching up on this blog, I (Hannah) found this draft post I wrote but never posted... so enjoy! Back soon with more recent happenings :-)

Still catching up.... 22nd May - The day of Crazy Rain. 

We went to bed one night as normal then about 4am we were woken by roaring thunder and rain battering the windows. (In Hong Kong we have a government department - the Hong Kong Observatory, who provide awesome weather information all day and all night. Usually it's not that interesting, but as we get into typhoon season we get some good alerts from the app!). I looked at my app and it said 'Red Rainstorm Warning' (there's Amber, Red and Black, in order of severity) - ooh exciting, not seen one of those before I thought.

With the crazy rain came crazy lightning; the blinds in our bedroom aren't up to much and it was like a strobe disco, we've never seen anything like it! We pulled the blinds up and tried to film it, but the visibility was so poor due to the intense rain. It started to subside and we tried to get back to sleep when I noticed we were now on 'Black Rainstorm Warning'.

Black rain is even more exciting because it means stay where you are and don't go to work! This signal also hadn't been raised for over 3 years! Given it was 4am I didn't really think it'd still be black when I woke up at 7:30am, but it was..... I looked out of the window and it just looked like bad rain really, nothing like in the middle of the night in any case.

I also didn't expect to see buses running, but there were plenty so I wasn't exactly sure why you were supposed to stay off work. (All schools shut automatically though in black rain). Stephen got an email from HR saying don't come in, but given he we live 10 minutes walk from his office he decided to make a point and go in. He texted me to say yeh it's a bit wet but the MTR was open so I should probably go to work too....

Decided to have a coffee and do a bit of crochet first mind.... 

On the MTR, normally squashed in like sardines.

I got to the office for 9:30, so technically only half an hour late and most people don't rock up till around then normally anyway. It was pretty bad really, the people who mop the floor / provide bags for your umbrellas / work in Starbucks and McDonalds were all working, so why the people that work in the offices couldn't make it in I don't really know. (Yes, some people do live a long way out and genuinely couldn't make it in due to flooding and landslides, but most don't!). Ah well, provided a bit of excitement for a random Wednesday morning anyway.

Onto the Bubble Tea, my latest obsession!

And finally, the beers! Check out this awesome selection we bought in our local Japanese supermarket. They even sell Meantime Lager, and it's cheaper than buying it in London!

Apparently in my draft post I'd added these pictures below but not written anything - have left them in for good measure (+ added captions).

The view from Beer Bay (a little hut by the ferry pier that serves very chip beer with a brilliant view watching the traffic in the harbour).

Sometimes we sit there all night and watch the sun set.

International Finance Centre 2 - Tallest building on HK Island (Bank of China tower in the background).

View from another favourite bar - Wooloomooloo Steak House in Wan Chai, pricey but worth it for that view - normally reserved for when we have visitors).

Same rooftop bar, different angle.