Silvermine Falls

LAst weekend Hong Kong had a direct hit by a typhoon, rated T9. I don't know how that relates to hurricane ratings, but it was the strongest to hit HK in several years (I think they said 5 yrs). We didn't actually feel it too strongly until night time, after it had already passed over us. It was cool though because we saw the wind direction and speed change as the typhoon moved over us. In the morning and day time, as the typhoon was moving closer to us, we were mostly protected by our building but we could stand out on our balcony and watch the wind blowing the trees down below. Then around 6pm everything came to a complete stand still as the eye of the storm moved over us. Then from 8 or 9pm on we were hit with violent wind (in the exact opposite direction than the morning) and some rains as the storm moved away from us.

The next day was rainy in the morning, but turned into beautiful blue sky in the afternoon. The storm must have blown all of the pollution away because it was so clear! We walked through the town of Mui Wo and up to Silvermine Falls, which is the first real waterfall that we have seen in HK. It even had a cool, refreshing breeze blowing across it like falls in the NW do. It was a beautiful glimpse of natural Hong Kong.