Jet lag…that was the reason I was online at 3am and learned a typhoon was heading for Hong Kong! A typhoon,, a cyclone, a hurricane…all basically the same thing, but named differently depending on where in the world they occur. . Northwest Pacific tropical storms are called typhoons. I was able to change my checkout date to Saturday first thing in the morning which was a relief. And the weather was quite good on Thursday morning so of course Lily and I planned on playing tennis.

Thursday Lily and I played at courts near my hotel. They weren’t as slick as the indoor court but were pretty fast. It was hot and humid, but felt good to hit balls. The park also included a field surrounded by a jogging track (though there was a sign that said no jogging was permitted on the jogging track which I thought was pretty humorous…apparently maintenance was being done.). After a good two-hour practice Lily took me by the courts used for the recent Hong Kong Open (won by Caroline Wozniaki). There the courts were much nicer though half of them were down for repairs. The soccer fields were in between the two tennis facilities.

After lunch (at a Vietnamese restaurant…it was very good) we went to the “Peak”, trying to get in a view before Typhoon Haima moved in. We didn’t quite make it, it wasn’t raining but it was cloudy. The view from Peak 100 was probably better, but it was fun to go up there. We took the train up. Of course there was a mall at the top and a lot of restaurants.

We took the bus down, which was packed to the gills and the bus driver was going around curves as if he was driving a racing car. It was an experience. After we exited at the MTR (into another beautiful mall), we went to the “Times Square” area and then walked back to my hotel. There was a trailer serving street food and Lily explained what the items were…the thing that looked like shrimp on a stick was really small intestines; you could also get tongue along with meatballs and so on. We passed. There were people outside the Apple store (not Apple affiliated). selling new Iphone 7S+ for a couple hundred HKD over the official price, and they had the black iphones which are pretty much out of stock at Apple stores.

When I got back to my hotel, the view was nice…the calm before the Typhoon!

All photos: https://goo.gl/photos/dt6Fcogn5uzBmeWb6