Yes, the Mid-Autumn Festival means a three-day weekend this year for those of us who happen to live in and around Hong Kong. How so? Since people will be staying up late tonight (Sunday) to enjoy the biggest, brightest moon of the year, the day after is a public holiday. That was so under the Brits, and still is.
(Oh, that photo... that's the earth seen from the moon. Isn't the earth beautiful? Spaceship Earth. Pity we are trashing it so, making it uninhabitable for humans. So it goes.)
Anyway, back to local matters. Irrespective of who rules, weekends, festive or otherwise, seem to have a tendency to inclement weather. This weekend has been no different. Late yesterday, Saturday, Hong Kong Observatory 'issued' a Tropical Cyclone Warning No. 1.
The Observatory used to 'hoist' a warning -- someone would literally go out in a gale and hoist the appropriate symbol up the weather station's flag pole. But now, as far as I can tell, weather stations are deflagpoled, unmanned, automated affairs -- so they 'issue' warnings.
(I'd like to be able to directly link to the Hong Kong Observatory's separate webpages that explain what those warnings mean, but the Obs website doesn't seem to allow. If you are interested to find out, go here and follow the links.)
Anyway, tropical storm Vicente has passed. The meteo reports Vicente as currently north of Da Nang, Vietnam, and expected to make landfall there later today.
Hereabouts, the Observatory has now downgraded to a Strong Monsoon Signal. For us earthbound travellers, what that means is we have a bright, sunny, occasionally cloudy, and very windy day. Yippee! The windsurfers are making the most of it out on Tung Wan Bay. Mister Bijou? He put out a line of washing to dry on the line before he went for a ride on his bike. Domesticity.
As well as the lanterns and whatnot, the practice on a little island in the South China Sea is to go down to Tung Wan Bay on this festive evening and light candles in the sand. Very pretty it looks too. Given the wind, people will have to dig deep pits, otherwise the candles will blow out. I am sure it will all work out. Mister Bijou will be down there to admire others having fun, regard and contemplate the big bright moon, and perhaps score some mooncake, too. Happy Moon Festival to everyone!
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