I can't possibly
I can't possibly, at this point, explain all that has gone on in the last while about the move to Hong Kong, but things are surely moving along. Eric got back from Hong Kong at the beginning of June, finished his 6 week secondment there. During that time he got his job sorted out and came to an agreement as to what he'd be doing there, and then the financial details that needed to be worked out.
They've essentially created a new job for him out in the HK office. He'll be regional sales and quality dude. That means that he'll be responsible for generating new business and keeping the printers in line. It's a good gig, similar to what he does here.
When I went to Hong Kong I wanted to find a job there, or at least make some progress towards that. I had applied to a few things, and called a few people and managed to make a few meetings happen while I was there.
I arrived in Hong Kong on the Wednesday night, and had 3 interviews set up for Friday. Of course as luck would have it, the warmest day of my entire trip was that Friday. Itw was easily 32 degrees and humid (I know this is nothing to the normal summer weather, and nothing to what we'll experience in August, but still it was hot). Of course I was also terribly jet lagged at that point, surviving on a Red Bull at 4pm, to make it to dinner time.
Long story short, I got called back for a second interview at one of the jobs, and at that interview was told I'd be offered a job. By the time I left I had the offer in hand. It was crazy how quickly it all moved. The job the offered was wicked cool. I will be working for a corporate English language training company the specialize in "In-house business English Training".
They wanted me to start right away-ish. We agreed on August as a start date. This caused its own set of problems. I returned to Toronto, and Eric followed a few weeks later and in 2 months we have to get our shit together and get moved out to Hong Kong. I am beginning to admire Hamish's life-philosophy of living as if you are on the run from the FBI - where everything you own could be put into one duffel-bag (assuming you're not using it to hide a body - not that he would, but why else is he on the run?).
So instead we're dragging crap to the Goodwill, selling stuff, primping, posing and selling our condo, buffing, cleaning and detailing our car and on and on .....
In the last few weeks we have reached a point of equilibrium. We have removed half stuff in our condo, so now it looks just empty enough to sell (you have to do this, people, when buying a condo or house, are incapable of all acts of imagination). We've sold stuff off, but nobody is allowed to pick it up until we sell the condo, because it has to look semi-empty, but not actually empty. So until we sell, it stays this way. There is nothing to do but wait. And stress out.
Our brains do what brains do when they have nothing useful, they eat themselves. So we've been fixated on what if we don't sell, or rent, or get rid of the car and a bunch of other options. It's horrible really. But something happened in the last week that kinda shifted.
We got a verbal offer on the condo. A slightly weird real estate agent came to us with an offer, well not really an offer, because of course if it is no signed and with a cheque, then it's not really an offer. But in any case he delivered us a verbal offer for the condo. It was really friggin' low, we would have worked with it, i.e. signed it back etc. if it had been on paper, but the guy then said that was his people's final offer. There's a whole blog entry to be written on what kind of a dick does that, but I'll save that for another time. Instead we told him to go away. He did. A week later we reduced our price on our listing. Still to nowhere within the range of what he offered but a significant reduction. Then he came back with an offer $1000 less than his original verbal offer. This time, as it was official, we dealt with it officially and signed it back, we came down a chunk (as you do to suggest you're wiling to work with a buyer) and sent it back. He came back a day later with an offer $1000 more - exactly what we had told him we would not sell for a week earlier, and clearly a stupid amount of money.
This asshole then had the nerve to be both surprised and a bit insulted when we refused to sign back the offer (that is to say, we let it die, and said we were no longer interested - a real estate 'fuck you'). But in all of this we realised that we didn't care, and we were not desperate, and that holding on to the condo for a month or two would not kill us. So in a way it was rather freeing.
So now we're still trying to sell or rent out the condo, and we may have a tenant this week, or sell it.... it's all up in the air. But in any case I'm a lot less stressed about it now than i was a few days ago.
As for what's next: well in the next few weeks we have to get rid of our furniture, finish up some work, say goodbye and head out. It's crazy, but we're winding up our Toronto lives for a while. The reality hit yesterday when we were putting together our going away party invite, Eric cried like a baby.
So that's the update for now.