YANGSHAN ISLAND, China – As the countdown began, my producer Jo Kent sighed. "This might be the most anticipated anti-climax ever." Clouds threatened to ruin the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, until the very last minute.

After much deliberation and intense consultation with eclipse chasers across Shanghai, we decided to post ourselves on Yangshan Island, a suburb of Shanghai. The chasers heading in this direction were very convincing. On the island, they said we'd have a lower chance of clouds and city pollution. And hundreds of them were going there. It was hard not to get swept up in the group mentality.

But by the time we arrived, it was raining. Not just raining, but thundering and lightning. I went to bed listening to thunder claps, petrified that we would miss out on the eclipse of my lifetime (and also my first ever).

Despite a dream that the heavens miraculously cleared, we woke to cloudy skies. Dark, cloudy skies. Still, the crowds there said we should stick it out.

In the elevator, one man told me: "I'm renewing my belief in God right now."

After all, the total eclipse itself wasn't happening for another couple of hours. Charles Fulco, a middle-school astronomy teacher from New York, confidently claimed he would stay optimistic until the end.

Personally, it was difficult to keep doubt from "clouding" my mind. I knew I had to stay positive for our viewers. After all, there's nothing compelling about a correspondent predicting the worst over and over again.

I was trying to put on a happy face for my next live shot when I heard "oohs” and “ahhs" in the background.

I was so flustered, I forgot to put on my eclipse glasses before I looked up. A partial eclipse was shining down on us all like a gift from Mother Nature.

The rush was undeniable. I was amazed, shocked, and most of all, relieved, that we had something to show the world.

Clouds quickly swooped in, completely eliminating any chance of seeing totality - that treasured moment when the sun is completely hidden behind the moon and its outer atmosphere (the "corona") is visible like a halo around the moon's shadow.

Nonetheless, Yangshan Island was swiftly shrouded in darkness. I mean, it happened in minutes and suddenly we were all pitched into black. The air grew cold. Hundreds of dragonflies that had been swarming for hours disappeared.

I was reporting the entire time, but wished I could take a breath and soak in this awesome, haunting feeling. The sun had literally vanished in midday.

And just as the skies started to brighten again, the clouds relented one last time. We saw another flash of light at the end of totality. It looked like a crescent moon in an evening sky, but in fact it was a sliver of the sun - the sun rising for the second time at the end of one of the most unnatural-seeming natural wonders.

Of course, there were a lot of disappointed eclipse watchers who'd traveled thousands of miles, spent thousands of dollars, to see this from beginning to end.

But these fleeting glimpses were enough for me. Our days of eclipse chasing - the cynicism, the science, the insanity of gambling to see the solar system in action - was exhilarating, even though we only witnessed a slice of astronomical glory.

HONG KONG, China – Ten years ago, I experienced a total solar eclipse in northern France. It was as if someone had turned off the lights on a Hollywood set and we were in the blackest of nights. The sky turned purple and I saw some stars. It became cooler and a breeze picked up, though it was late morning.

When I was heading out on the train to the rural area where I watched the eclipse, I met people who had traveled from across the world to see it. I did not know then what the appeal was, but afterward, I vowed to make it to any other eclipses that I could.

Fast forward to one week ago when I learned I was living in the path of another total solar eclipse. It reminded me of that feeling of witnessing the power of Mother Nature - to turn day into night, then back into day – and in the process play a little game with humans and animals with the sudden switching on and off of the lights.

Today, I went out to a primary school in Hong Kong, where sky gazers gathered in droves. They were armed with sun goggles, telescopes, binoculars, a large solar filter and even a homemade eclipse viewer.

The air was charged with enthusiasm, and I was swept along with it. I knew we were only getting a partial eclipse of 75 percent, and so it would not equal my earlier experience, but the skies were unusually sunny for what has been a very rainy typhoon season in the southern Chinese enclave.

Hong Kong is a typically busy financial hub, cluttered with skyscrapers and block after block of apartment buildings. Even if it had not been raining, the city could have been covered in an all-too-frequent haze that blocks out the sun.

At the school, I spoke with parents who made their daughter a homemade eclipse viewer, a woman who brought her family and her housekeeper, a 13-year-old astronomy enthusiast who asked his teacher to join him, among others.

The astronomy enthusiast, Louis Chung, told me: "City folks wouldn't usually be able to see this."

"Nature is wonderful. It is awesome to know that nature can provide such spectacular sights," said Chung, a member of the Hong Kong Astronomical Society.

Yolanda Yip, 12, came with her parents to the school. Her father, Frankie Yip, fashioned a homemade way to see the eclipse: He took a shoe box and put aluminum foil at one end - with a small hole poked in it - and cooking paper on the other. He said he wanted Yolanda to learn more about the solar system.

"We love the Earth, we want to know more about it. The sun eclipse is one of the rare phenomenons about the sun, the Earth," said mother Sammie Chan, noting that she thought the eclipse was "gorgeous."

As the moon slowly passed over the sun, I grabbed my own solar viewer to watch. Even though the sky did not darken - it was though the lights had been dimmed - I still marveled at the show that Mother Nature had to offer us on this day.

There are many things we can try and control in life, but this is one of those moments that we need to step back and watch nature conducting a grand performance for us.

SHANGHAI, China - Charles Fulco, a middle school astronomy teacher, never thought he would come to China.

But his passion for one of nature’s grandest spectacles compelled him to travel 7,000 miles from New York to Shanghai, to watch the longest total solar eclipse of the century.

"I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it," says Fulco. “The last one I saw was 10 years ago and it’s like it happened yesterday."

Unfortunately, Mother Nature may have something very disappointing in store for him. Yes, forecasters in Shanghai are predicting rain.

The weather on the day of an eclipse is always a gamble, and it’s frustrating too. As the CNN team sent to Shanghai to cover the big event, we’re just as desperate to find a hole in the clouds as eclipse-chasers from around the world. We don’t want to miss it either.

So, we’ve consulted the experts, multiple tour groups, all with different strategies about how to beat the clouds. We've heard words like "air convection," "cloud count" and "land temperature" thrown around.

Fulco’s team is headed to Yangshan Island off the coast of Shanghai. The theory: The closer you are to a large body of water, the less dense cloud cover will be.

But others say being locked on an island is dangerous. The most important thing is mobility. So a group of MIT and Princeton alumni have chosen a spot on the Chinese mainland, along a manmade lake.

Yet a third group of 260 Americans with Sky and Telescope Magazine, are too difficult to keep up with. They seem to change their plans by the hour, determined to move in any direction last-minute, to ensure their view is not obscured. They are entertaining both coastal and inland options. When last we talked to them, they said would make their final decision after an intense discussion at dinner.

We’ve been warned about this kind of behavior. Veteran eclipse-chasers say if you change your plans too much, you risk missing the eclipse altogether.

Nevertheless, anxiety lingers as much as anticipation.

We’ve neared our final decision, but you’ll have to watch us live tomorrow morning (Shanghai time) to find out where we landed.