Black Rain in Hong Kong

We woke up early to the sound of rain and thunder, and to a very dark sky. It was raining so hard that you couldn’t see the water in the harbor. We got a call, did we know it’s flooding downstairs?

It was "black rain", the worst kind. I looked out the window and thought, "oh that doesn’t look too bad", and it was just about then that a bus went by on Hennessy and I noticed that it sent out a wave that went right into the 7/11 across the street. It was a lake down there, and and there was all kinds of wonderful stuff floating in it, like styrofoam boxes, paper, even a wooden pallet. It gradually got worse and worse, until the intersection looked like a very large lake. By the time we got downstairs water was coming in under the front doors. By then all the traffic had moved to the center of the road where the ding dings run, it’s the highest part of the road. People were wading across the street in water up to their knees.

We had to leave by 10 a.m. to get to the temple by 11:30 a.m., so we "dressed" for the occasion. Dew had his white shirt, tie and suit coat on with his hiking pants and croc’s. I had on a polyester skirt with elastic around the waist that I could roll up and my shower thongs, and off we went. We had our dry shoes and his suit pants in a back pack to change into when we got there.

We waded in and it was almost to my knees. We slogged out to the middle of the road, with the rest of the brave souls and walked down the middle towards Times Square to catch the MTR. By this time there were no cars, buses, or ding dings moving at all. As we walked we were laughing and taking pictures. One Chinese couple walked by and said, "wonderful". Wonderful indeed, a real once in a lifetime rain for us.

As we went east we discovered that the worst part of the "lake" was at the intersection of Marsh and Hennessy - our corner. You could see the water lapping into the shops on both sides of the road. By the time we got over to Canal Road it was deep, but nothing like our corner.

We made good time on the MTR and found seats. Everyone else with any common sense were at home, watching it rain. We got out and Dew asked if I wanted to take a taxi to the temple, about a 3 block walk, uphill. I said, "heck no, we might as well continue to hike in the flood". The going wasn’t as hard, but water was bubbling up from all the storm drains along the way. When we got to the temple they were squirting down the front area which had a layer of mud where the water had brought down dirt from the surrounding hills. On the last of our trip, just doors away from the temple a taxi decided he simply had to pass a bus, and we were not paying attention. Result - he soaked us (what wasn’t already soaked anyway). Well, at least we got a little wetter from the waist down.

By the time we left the rain had stopped and the water was quickly draining away. We rode the bus back to the office, where I had left my croc’s. From now on I will keep them close at hand, they are easier to walk in than flip flops when you cross the "River Hennessy".

We spent the afternoon grocery shopping, 3 stores in all, two of which had been flooded. We went to Prizemart which is on Wan Chai road which is fairly up hill from our corner. They were still mopping up water. Dew asked them how they took on so much water when they are uphill. They simply pointed to the back room, which of course would have gotten all the run off from the hill behind them. By the time we finished our shopping the whole area was busy throwing out wet boxes and carpet and drying floors and cleaning up all the "garbage" that had been floating in the water.

I certainly hope we don’t get some exotic disease from wading in that filthy water!!! Actually it was rather fun!