Hong Kong (1.10 - 1.14): My first week in Hong Kong

Just a (not so) quick run down of what I’ve been up to since coming to Hong Kong …

January 10 - Wednesday

After waking up and showering we all made our way down the hill to get some plane tickets for Pat and Stephen (Pat was going up to Beijing for the weekend and both of them were going to Xiamen the following weekend. After that we met up with Terence at the office. It was my first time seeing it. Kinda small, but there is only a handful of us so I don’t think it will be a problem. It’s Hong Kong, after all — everything is smaller here. We had some meetings and did some work for a few hours but then it was time to go.

Stephen had plans to meet up with someone so Pat and I met with Raffi to go grab dinner. First we dropped by their acquaintence’s clothing store in the TST / Jordan area, and then we went to the Spaghetti House where Pat tried to stuff himself. The food was quite good though. Then we said farewell to Raffi and headed back on the MTR to Pat and Stephen’s. We were all on our laptops and eventually fell asleep sometime in the wee hours.

January 11 - Thursday

I woke up, showered, and then headed down to the office. Pat and Stephen were still in their rooms but I figured I would get a head start on some things I wanted to take care of. But I was hungry first so I went to a small restaurant around the corner from work, listened to my Pimsleur lesson for the day, and then headed to the office. I spent a few hours there working on some documentation and then ended up leaving right around the time Stephen showed up.

I was on a mission to find a SIM card. I took the MTR over to Causeway Bay and walked around for a while. Eventually I found a phone store and the lady there sold me a card. I can even make international calls on it and SMS with China, but I will probably reserve those sorts of things for when they are necessary since I’m sure they rack up the minutes.

After getting the SIM card I headed back to Central and went up the escalators to the apartment. Pat had gotten a furniture delivery from Ikea so there was a table and a cabinet in the main room now. He also had a bed and dresser in his. Nice to have somewhere to put my laptop besides my … lap … umm … top? Err ….

Anyway, I chatted with Pat who was going to be leaving the next morning for Beijing. We ended up staying up rather late and went to grab a hot dog down the hill at the 24 hour hot dog stand. Again, a late night but eventually I fell asleep on the couch.

January 12 - Friday

When I woke up Pat had left already. I actually woke up a bit late and had an appointment to go meet my old friend (and possible co-worker) Christina (a.k.a. “Xtina”). I used to hang out with her a bunch back in the day when she was at U.C. Berkeley and we lived not far from each other. But four years ago she moved to Hong Kong to work and about a year or so ago she got married. Now she has a newborn daughter, as well as a 12 year old step-son, both of whom are pretty cool people. Her husband is a cop too, which is kinda cool. Whenever I think of a Hong Kong cop I automatically flash back to every Jackie Chan Police Story movie I’ve ever seen so of course I have positive vibes. I’m sure if I were a criminal I would not feel so friendly towards him.

I met up with her at the MTR station near her home and we did some grocery shopping. Her dad was in town and was watching the baby so we caught up a bit as we shopped for Hot Pot ingredients. They had invited me over for dinner so hot pot was on the menu. Xtina had also been giving me advice about places to live via MSN/Email which was quite helpful.

Dinner was good and the hot pot ingredients we had were really good. I’m going to have to make some hot pot myself because I really liked some of the interesting varieties of ingredients they have here. Plus, it’s a pretty healthy meal when it comes down to it. I actually don’t really like mainland Hot Pot so much, but the cantonese home-cooked variety is quite yummy.

Her husband came home a little late so we started without him (he was busy arresting someone) but eventually he made it back. After dinner Xtina offered to help me go look at a residence apartment in the Quarry Bay area so we grabbed the MTR and headed there. Unfortunately the place was not open for viewing so we hung out at Jasco and did some shopping. I finally broke down and bought a new camera (I’ve been debating about brands and what to do for a while now).

I went with the Casio Exilim S770. This is my first time going away from the Canon brand since about 5 years ago (my first digital camera was a Kodak and my second was an Olympus, but since then they’ve all been Canon Elph’s. I haven’t had much time to really play around with it yet, but once my life is a bit more settled I’m sure I will be posting up lots of pictures soon enough.

I said goodbye to Xtina and I caught a train back to the apartment. Stephen’s girlfriend Annie was visiting and I saw them in and out of the apartment for most of the weekend. But on Friday evening I mainly just putzed around on my computer, setting up some peripherals and my hard drive and watching some DVDs.

Christina in the kitchen

A Yawning Baby

Baby in the crib

Pat and Stephen’s kitchen area

The super long couch, a.k.a. “Mark’s temporary bed”

January 13 - Saturday

It was the weekend! I woke up around noon-ish or so and got showered and, after putzing on my computer (I putz a lot, don’t I?) I headed out. First I took the Tram (my first time! wheee!) to Kennedy Town to check out a residence apartment called the Merton. It was actually quite nice. Small, of course (it’s HK, remember?) but nice ammenities and the building facilities were quite nice, including a gym, a swimming pool, study rooms and they even have piano practice rooms you can reserve. I could just hear my parent’s voicing approval at the idea of me taking up regular piano practice again.

This place had a semi-decent view from the 26th floor (I could see some water as well as some mountain) and it was literally smack dab on the tram line (the end of the tram line is a circular path around the building) and just a 10 - 15 minute ride to the office. Super convenient. The only down-side was the price. It was more on the pricey side of things. I could still afford it, but not as easily as I would prefer. $9,500 HKD / month unfurnished, which for the neighborhood and type of unit was not bad at all. I’m attempting to keep things as much under $10,000 HKD / month as possible so this was scraping the ceiling a bit.

I was thinking of checking out Manhattan Heights, which is another place just next door to the Merton, but he agent mentioned that the prices there are much higher (and independent agent not affiliated with the Merton, btw) because it’s right on the water and has nicer facilities.

After that I took the trolley for a spin to see where I ended up. As it turned out I took it all the way to Happy Valley. I did a walk around the horse race track and then caught the trolley back to the Apartment. When I got there Stephen and Annie had already left to go eat dinner with Raffi and some other folks (I”m sure Raffi will have a report on his blog at some point, so keep a look out for that) but I opted to stay in. I wanted to get an earlier start to check out apartments on Sunday. I ended up grabbing some McDonald’s for dinner and watching some Back to the Future before turning in.

My first tram ride

The Merton apartment — just imagine it without furniture

It’s actually a combination washer AND dryer! Score!

Great view from the 33rd floor

Nice view down the escalators

January 14 - Sunday:

And the week has come to an end! I woke up, showered, checked some apartment listings online and then headed out. First I ate some food at a small restaurant not too far from the office. Then I caught a tram to North Point. I made some phone calls while I was on the tram but several of the places I had looked up weren’t available for viewing (and to be honest, the pickings were kind of slim).

I decided that I would do the same thing I did in Shanghai when I was looking for a place. Since a lot of the apartment availabilities are handled by local agents in specific neighborhoods I would just go to a neighborhood I was interested in and see what sort of units they had there. So I grabbed a train (or 3) out to Shatin to see what was available.

Shatin probably seems a bit far (It’s in New Territories) but I timed the trip and it was actually under 45 minutes from the office to the mall next to the KCR station. That’s certainly a reasonable commute for me.

When I left the station I didn’t really know the neighborhood so I just walked around a bit. I saw a Shatin City Council building and next to that was a library. I walked around the building and then I saw a familiar sight. There was a kid doing staff basics on a raised part of a park. When I walked over there I noticed that there was another group of kids doing a southern fist set and some other girl was learning taiji sword. There was a guy teaching them too and he had a Hong Kong Wushu Team jacket on.

To be honest, he looked a little familiar, but I didn’t know who he was. After talking to HK Colin online later in the day it turns out that Colin knows who he is. Of course, he didn’t give me his name so I’m still in the dark, but apparently he was on the HK team at one point and is over 30 years old now. Anyway, it was pretty neat. I sat and watched their practice for a while but then decided to check out the surrounding neighborhood.

Wushu practice in the park

Stretching the kids

It turned out I had walked straight through the mall which is connected to the KCR station, and which is also part of a larger complex of apartment buildings connected to the mall. I walked around and found a real estate office and went in. They didn’t speak English or Mandarin so they said to come back in 30 minutes or so. I grabbed a drink at 7-11 and watched some of last week’s “Smallville” on my Treo to pass the time.

When I went back I was helped by a woman named Mandy. She didn’t speak English, but we could communicate okay in Mandarin. I told her what I was looking for (1 bedroom unit, under $9,000 HKD (hopefully), furnished (if possible), etc.) and she showed me two places. The first one wasn’t too bad. Quite small (but pretty much all one bedroom apartments in Hong Kong are expected to be tiny) but larger than you might have guessed. It was on the 25th floor of a building with a partial view of the water way and I could have sworn that I almost saw Raffi’s place up in MOS. (It was dark though, but wouldn’t that be interesting?) This unit was a little cramped in the kitchen and bathrooms but was just $6,000 HKD. They said I could probably opt for good appliances (there wasn’t any) and some furniture if I bumped it up to $7,000 HKD.

The second place was on the opposite side of the (massively huge) complex. It was a two bedroom unit on the 15th floor. No view (unless you count the side of a hill and the KCR train) but it was pretty big. But the vibe just didn’t seem right to me. It was too …. dark .. or …. I don’t know how to explain it. Certain homes give off certain energy and I just didn’t dig what I felt in this one. After looking around and taking some pictures we left.

When we got back to the real estate office I met with Anna, who first started speaking with me in Mandarin until she realized my English was better. At first they were trying to pressure me to come up with a decision on the spot but I was pretty firm about not making any rash decisions and seeing other apartments in other locations around Hong Kong before I figure out what I’m doing. I mentioned that I wanted to look at some places up in Ma On Shan which at first they tried to advise against. I mean — they’re working for commission, right? I can understand their actions even if I don’t particular enjoy them.

But I gave them another opportunity. On Monday after work I’m going to head up to Ma On Shan and I said they could show me some places up there. That seemed to make them pretty happy. It wasn’t that I was trying to give them the boot, so much as I’m trying to explore all my options. They have several offices all over the place (3 in Ma On Shan itself) so I knew they would know what listings were avilable up there. I told Anna I would give her a call the next day and we could meet in Ma On Shan to look at some units.

Plus, they already know what I’m looking for and what my budget is so at least I don’t have to explain all of that again. Less headache and work for me.

After that I took the KCR/MTR back to Central. It was actually quite fast. I found that it’s much faster to transfer at Kowloon Tong and then transfer again at Mongkok than to just go all the way to TST on the KCR. The TST connection is much longer to walk and as a result you don’t really make up any time since the train conections at the other two stations are pretty quick. I also found that it was quicker from Central to get off at the closest exit and just take the tram down to the escalators than to walk all the way to the farthest exit nearest the escalators. While walking is great, it isn’t necessarily a time-saver. I ended up getting from Shatin to the apartment in just around 50 minutes.

Speaking of walking, I’m finding that it is really the main form of transportation in Hong Kong. I’ve walked more in the last 5 days in Hong Kong than I walked in the last 5 weeks in Shanghai. Plus, with all the hills, I think my legs are going to start getting much stronger. It’s not such a bad thing, I think.

As I was walking back on Caine Road I ran into Stephen who was running to the store. We both grabbed some food at the restaurant downstairs (it was quite yummy) which I ate while watching the end of the Back to the Future trilogy. Then I checked email, did some bit torent watching and worked on my blog.

Thus ends the first week in Hong Kong. I have to be honest though, I’m really in a quandry about this apartment thing. New Territories vs. Hong Kong. I liked that place in Kennedy Town, but New Territories is just so much cheaper — and I like the idea of not living too close to the city. I think it helps build one’s perspective when they live and work in different locations. The commute is also not so bad and it gives me time to work on my Pimsleur language lessons too (of which I now have about 3 years worth of languages to go through).

So my debate is between having a small, expensive, but very nice place close to work (but far from other things) or having a slightly larger, cheaper place that isn’t as nice but is a little more a part of the “life” of Hong Kong. I guess I will see how things in Ma On Shan go tomorrow. If anyone has any recommendations on other neighborhoods that I might want to check out, please let me know. I’d love to get more info.

Unit number 1 in Shatin

Unit number 2 in Shatin