Wet/rain (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

Hong Kong is a place where one regularly sees a lot of water about -- in harbours (such as iconic Victoria Harbour), surrounding islands (including Hong Kong Island and Lantau but also myriad smaller islands such as Cheung Chau and Po Toi), rivers and streams But as can be witnessed as recently as this week, it also is a lot of place where a lot of water regularly falls from the sky.

Put another way: it rains so much here that the Hong Kong authorities not only have rain warnings but three levels of them (coded in various colors) and special thunderstorm and -- we're getting serious here -- tropical cyclone (think typhoon) warning bulletins, tracking systems and dedicated pages on the Hong Kong Observatory's website.

Indeed, it rains so much in Hong Kong that there's money to be made in installing umbrella vending machines in heavily trafficked spaces such as MTR stations! In addition, I think it says something that my blog statistics show that my entry on things to do in Hong Kong when it rains is one of the most popular (so much so that I decided to follow up entry with more suggestions as to what to do in Hong Kong on rain days to help those looking for such ideas)!

Lest there be any doubt: yes, storms in the Fragrant Harbour can make for spectacular sights -- though the problem with trying to take photographs when it is raining is that it's hard to do so without getting thoroughly wet. (Also, there's the matter of trying to avoid being poked in the eye by the umbrella tips of people passing by -- something which is hard to avoid even when one isn't standing still in the crowd!).

From experience, however, I've found that buses are good dry vantage points from which to take rain day photos. And, as I think the top-most image on this Photo Hunt entry shows, cool pics can also be captured before the rain starts pouring but when the dark storm clouds already clearly are a-gathering! :b