Travel Diaries Hong Kong 2006 Day 9 - Typhoon Signal 1 | Day 9 - Typhoon Signal 1 |
| Tuesday, 12 September 2006 | ||||||
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This morning I awoke with a bit of a sore throat. Inevitably after living with Clara and Polly who had both been ill over the last couple of days, some of the illness had started to wear off on me and I wasn't feeling brilliant! I had a breakfast of cereal and mashed potato and corned beef bun. Today we were meeting Sunny who was coming over from Macau for the day. Mrs Wong the cleaner came over to the house about 10.30am and the first stop of the day for us was the opticians for Clara to get some new glasses. We left the house with Polly and took a number 3B bus down the hill and into central, where we went up to the top floor of the New World Center to visit Clara's optician. The thing that is different about doctors and opticians in Hong Kong is that you do not make an appointment before going, you simply turn up and wait your turn - I can't really see that working on the NHS! The optician was a small, independent affair - similar to the ones that used to be around in England before the rise of the super opticians such as Specsavers. This was the optician that Clara had visited since she was small and contrary to the way in England you do not pay for a sight test, this is done free and then the optician tries to sell you some glasses (which Clara was going to buy anyway). The optician seemed a rather ameturish affair and was quite empty, but the people were very friendly and obviously knew Polly and Clara as customers for a long time. Clara had a quick eye test in a little back room and then came out to pick some frames. The choice here seemed to be much greater that somewhere like Specsavers, but the prices are actually quite similar to those in the UK (despite Clara thinking they were a lot cheaper). While I was there I saw a notice about contact lenses and they were also a very similar price to the UK too. It took Clara a little while to find the right frames but eventually we picked and then ordered them - the total cost being around 70 pounds including lenses - for a non-designer frame. After leaving the optician we went downstairs in the International Finance Center (IFC) mall. IFC2 is the tallest building in Hong Kong and I've taken pictures before. Down on the bottom floor is a large food shop called City Super, which appears to be Japanese by the amount of Japanese products they sell. We had a look around for a while and bought a few things including some ricey bits (these are small flavoured bits to sprinkle on rice) and some sweets. We were meeting Sunny at 1.30pm and before then we decided to go for a little walk around the IFC. We walked to the harbour front where we had a look at the new Star Ferry pier that was being built. We also had a look at the plans for the next part of reclaimed land (which is why the star ferry pier is moving!). At the harbour front is the ferries to the outlying islands of Hong Kong, which are fairly frequent (about each hour) and cheap (less than a pound). We might be travelling on these later in the week if we go to Lamma island. We went to meet Sunny in the landmark shopping center and he turned up - only a little bit late! By now it was nearly 2pm and so we took a tram to Causeway Bay where we were going to have lunch in another small chinese cafe. Again this looked a lot like a transport cafe in the UK. As we looked inside it appeared full but we were led upstairs along a small staircase to an upstairs floor, with VERY low beams. Again we ate noodles with fish balls but Sunny had noodles with 'beef waist' - I'm not even sure what that is in English! Today the weather was raining again so we decided to go for a look around the shopping center in Times Square. There are about 6 floors of shops, mostly small clothes shops and some electrical places a bit like Dixons. When we finally worked our way to the bottom Clara pointed out a small sign to me. The sign said that the Typhoon Signal 1 had been raised. This means that there is a typhoon in the area and is the lowest warning signal - basically it means that nothings really happening! The other evening I was watching BBC World and they said that there was a typhoon brewing in the Pacific, but it would probably be heading for Japan. The Signal 1 is raised as a warning that it could possibly change course, and if this gets raised to a Signal 3 some services begin to stop. In the unlikely event of a Signal 8, the typhoon will pass through Hong Kong and everyone will have to stay at home. After our small amount of shopping my cold had got a little worse and my nose wouldn't stop running, so we decided to go home for a rest. In the taxi on the way home, Clara told me the weather said there may be torrential rain for the next couple of days... That's it for the daytime today, quite short but we didn't do too much! Tongith we're off out for Shanghai cuisine with Clara's parents and Sunny. Also not many pictures to look at today!
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