Yup. That’s hail. At the end of May.
Flooding in Lanarkshire
We live on fairly high ground so we haven’t had any flooding, although the rain has been un-freaking-believable!
You know it must be Baltic when…
… even Neil said he felt a bit cold this morning: Flooding, snow and 90mph winds.
(When Neil and I go out, it looks like we are inhabiting two different weather systems — at best, he wears a fleece over his teeshirt, while I’m bundled up with jumper, coat, hat, and scarf.)
(He also said, in defence of his masculinity, that he didn’t sleep so well, so it may have contributed to his feeling a wee bit chilled.)
Great timing, weather deity
The weather has been — in a word — absolute shite. As it’s being unseasonably mild (I guess the US must be getting all of it, since it’s moving east, I wonder if it’ll finally get us), what should be snow is rain. Rain. Every day. High winds. 70mph winds at times.
Today is the first nice day in a while. And most of us are at work. We won’t get out of the office until the sun has set, and the weather is forecast to be shite again for the rest of the week.
I knew durians were more than just a little dangerous
Typhoon by name, durian by nature: “The full extent of the damage wrought by Durian is not yet known because power and telephone lines have been brought down, but as many as 22,000 people across the region are thought to have been affected.” — Many feared dead in Philippines.
Typhoon Haitang
Currently lashing Taiwan, Typhoon Haitang has been making itself felt in Xiamen with winds strong enough to blow a kitten or small Asian blogger away. To add insult to injury, the Central Weather Bureau has also reported an earthquake, magnitude 4.3, in Hualien (one of the cities worst affected by the typhoon).
Trail of Destruction™ — Typhoon Aere
Photos snapped from the company bus this morning:
Click on the thumbnails to enlarge
Some were kept awake by the sound of the typhoon wind. Others, yours truly included, slept right through it.
In Shenzhen
I was in Shenzhen over the last couple of days, and it was nowhere as exciting as ShenzhenParty.com makes it look. This is mainly because I spent most of my time in a printing factory, looking at digital proofs (there’s another hint for you).
I did get a chance to have a mocha at Starbucks (Seaworld in Shekou) — I never thought I’d be so thrilled to see a Starbucks, but there you go (the special Shenzhen Starbucks oversize coffee mug costs more than a bag of beans). We got directions to Starbucks from SPR Coffee, whose staff told us that they were a copy of Starbucks (only in China, only in China). I also had a great lunch and breakfast dim sum at a place called West Bay (Xi Hai Wan). I had no idea how much I missed Cantonese food until my meals in Shenzhen.
We came back to Xiamen as early as we could yesterday afternoon. There was a typhoon warning in Xiamen, and the last thing I wanted was to stay in Shenzhen another night (we stayed in a Chinese motel, which defies description).
I go on another business trip next week, this time for a fortnight.