I suspect I should be working rather than typing this (written earlier this morning), but instead I am watching an ever-changing view of the HK mainland. One minute it is there, the next it is shrouded with a screen of black clouds and driving rain. It's incredibly romantic, in sort of Eliot / the Waste Land sense of the phrase.

This would be my first experience of the tail-end of the HK rainy season. It began yesterday afternoon with rain, and continued into the evening with a low-level Typhoon warning and plenty of rain. Consequently, I think I managed three, perhaps four hours sleep last night. But, that doesn't really bother me and Wednesday is a "bank
holiday" anyway, so I can cope with a couple of nights of limited sleep. Although, since typing that sentence the chance of me getting the Wednesday off work is diminishing.

Anyhoo. So, last night I'd gone to bed and it was slightly noisy outside - lashing of rain and lots of wind howling around. OK, slightly annoying but I'm tucked up inside, so what does it matter. Then the thunder and lightening began. There was some incredible sheet-lightening over the harbour. The worst of it ('it' being a stormy night) is the air conditioning units. These jut out of each window, so I have three - bathroom, bedroom, living room. They are, in effect, protruding metal boxes. And when the rain comes down, they get battered. This creates a sound akin only to a caravan in the rain. Now, I'm not sure I've really ever been in a caravan in the rain, but I suspect this is what it sounds like. And with three of these units, you get a form of around-sound clatter. Deep, resounding, joy. And then of course I got one of my favourite Stereophonics songs, Caravan Holiday, stuck in my rain... "seven days holiday in the rain with you"... la la la.

Anyway, so, today the rain continues. But it's weird, because although it looks like it should be cold outside, it is actually still mid-twenties (degrees Celsius). Needless to say, I am wearing a big and incredibly warm and fluffy dusky pink jumper. Just because I'm English, and just because I can.

One of the other issues with trying to sleep, was that I decided to try to count sheep at one point. But how can you count sheep these days? I mean, I just started thinking about foot & mouth and bluetongue disease.
At one point, I had the most vivid image of a sheep with a blue tongue in my mind - the sort of blue colour a child's tongue would go if they had just eaten a raspberry lolly pop. Why, incidentally, are raspberry (pronounced ras-berry, not raaars-berry) flavoured things always blue?

It's quite helpful though, I suppose, that the diseases affecting our livestock at the moment are referred to in practical terms. At least we can appreciate that these sheep have issues with their feet and mouths, rather than it being referred to as Aphtae epizooticae, where none but the most proficient in Latin would have an idea what on earth was going on. I was amused by the new[e]s trail yesterday though. Don't get me wrong, I'm not amused by the concept of any disease affecting the farming community, but to begin with one news website reported that 'woe, it was all to do with climate change' (well, they didn't use those words, but that was the jist). The UK has got warmer and consequently the nasty parasite spreading bluetongue disease has travelled North. Then, the headline read 'British climate could save an outbreak' (or a phrase to that effect), since with any luck we'll have frost shortly and it will kill it off. Apparently the disease can't spread below 15 degrees centigrade. Well, I think both are probably quite plausible, so let's just hope the cold hurries on up. It does make you realise some of the more subtle, but largely devastating effects, of climate change (or potential climate change) though - whether this is an example or not, it gives an indication of what could happen.

On an utterly different note, something I forgot to ramble on about in my post on Saturday was the feng shui of a particular building. There's an apartment block in Repulse Bay, HK, just visible in the photo below.

As you can see, it has a hole in the middle of it. The building stands very close to a mountain, but is also very close / overlooks the ocean. According to the principles of feng shui, the hole allows dragons (which live in the mountains) to drink from the bay (they can get through the hole). It is very bad if dragons are unable to drink, apparently. I say this with a degree of Western scepticism, but also respect.

Living here, I can't escape the fact that feng shui principles are everywhere. There's one particular skyscraper - the Bank of China Tower - that is disliked because it has four triangular prisms. These are negative since, being the opposite to circles, contradict everything the circle stands for - perfection. The crosses on the side of the building also suggest negativity. Another skyscraper was disliked when it was built since people thought that it looked like a giant white candle. A white candle represents death. Consequently a rooftop swimming pool was built on the top of the building. The water puts out the flame of the candle and thus the so-called bad ch'i is dissipated. Other examples of feng shui include the fact that the sofa in my apartment faces North.

People at work are crazy about the number eight - the luckiest number. I am blessed with room 43-28 (a good thing) but it has been noted my HK ID number does not include the figure eight (a bad thing). In transactions, the timing for two companies to merge can depend on the date - this will affect whether the business is successful or not. Not strictly feng shui, but when eating you can't stick your chopsticks back in a bowl (as to make them upright). This is said to resemble incense sticks in a bowl of ashes, a sign of death. At this rate I'll be lucky if survive the six months out.