Our second home

On Thursday we moved from Mid Levels, expat playground, to Fortress Hill, a much more Chinese part of town. When I say 'we', I actually mean Wilko, as he moved our stuff while I was at work. And got me flowers. I knew I married a good egg.  

Our new shoebox has a comfy couch and a great bed so we're happy. Shame I can no longer walk to work though, that was nice while it lasted. Seeing the tai chi in the park was a very calming start of the day. 

Our new (temporary) apartment building is right opposite the tube station and in the middle of a gazillion restaurants. We had dim sum yesterday and some famous noodles for lunch today, followed by a local delicacy: egg waffle. We just followed our nose and according to several locals it was the best place in the area to have these. They were absolutely delicious.

Our apartment hunting is going so so. The view in the previous post won't be ours, as our offer was overbid by a massive HK$4000 a month, (about €480). We also made offers for two of the lower floors but those landlords don't want to get back to us until after Chinese New Year.  Patience is required.... The whole process is pretty interesting here. You offer a package of rent, rent-free period (1-2 weeks is not uncommon), start date and anything you'd like thrown in (like curtains) and then the agent negotiates with the landlord, often through another agent representing said landlord. Hopefully we're just a few negotiations away from signing a contract. And we have some time as our container is only somewhere between Egypt and Singapore.

Other than eating, we spent a fair bit of time getting organised: opening a bank account (a bureaucratic affair and the only reason I now have one is that I have a UK driver's license that has an address on it, albeit one I haven't lived at for 4.5 years), getting a phone contract, and applying for my Hong Kong ID (needed to apply for W's dependant visa, get my phone deposit back and many other things). In a country where everybloodyone is constantly staring at their mobile phones it's pretty shocking how undeveloped things are when it comes to organising things online. To give an example: my payroll account comes with a sort of savings account and online banking. However, the first time I want to transfer money to my savings account, I have to go into their offices. I also noticed many ATMs offer the option to do money transfers.  There's an app for that people!

Ah well. I could do with some patience, and this is a good place to work on that. For now, I'll enjoy my five day sunny weekend.  Kung Hei Fat Choy!