CONSIDER THINGS BESIDES THE WEATHER

The worst typhoon to recently hit Hong Kong was Mangkut in September 2018. I wasn't there, of course, that was the year I was gambling that my medical insurance would kick in before a heart attack by the side of the freeway while waiting for the bus home after work, but in some ways watching horrid weather elsewhere was a welcome relief. Which is odd. Hoping that one will survive is much easier when other people are looking at scaffolding falling twenty stories, or roofs of warehouses being torn off. One tends to be self-centered when facing death.

In fact, I don't really want to be in a typhoon again. And certainly not a monster storm. Never mind the enlightening change in perspective. Watching water go sideways is, in the final analysis, more intellectually stimulating and far less worrisome from half a world away.

It is far better to be an armchair disaster tourist than to actually be there.

A friend lives on the umpteenth something floor of an apartment building in a development on Ap Lei Chau (鴨脷洲). Which is a lovely place to live, as far as digs in HK go, but her elevator went out during the storm. So getting to work was not an issue, if she had wanted to desperately get to the hard copies of shipping and cargo files .....
Though getting home would have been a problem.
Which highlights two things:

1) Have everything necessary on your computer in case of emergency;
2) Always have enough potato salad at home to weather a storm.

Of course if the electricity goes out too, you will be hosed.

I am (momentarily) quite fixated on potato salad.

Potato salad is very comforting.

One can NOT smoke one's pipe outside in a howling gale, because the winds might cause the bowl to overheat and possibly burn out. Getting it lit and keeping it so present huge problems. Plus any available shelter will be occupied by nonsmokers.

But one can eat potato salad. That enterprise is not, or far less, affected by the weather.

Hong Kong is on the whole warmer than San Francisco (current temps: SF 58°F. HK 88°F).
Potato salad is not widely available, but can be found with diligence.
Alas, pipe tobacco is an iffy proposition altogether.
And typhoons remain an issue.

But there are benefits.
Very solid.



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