Update
Sorry, I'm a bastard for not blogging in a long while. I'll try to get caught up here.
First things first. I will put some pics up in the next few days. I've got some good ones I think, and once fidn the little widget to upload pics, I'll be golden.
The big news is that we found a place to move into, and moved. I would love to say that it was a painless situation. I'd also like to say that 6 feet tall and a porn star, however that's not true either. Eric and I went to see about 50 apartments before settling on this one. We saw large and small, new and old, ugly and nice, spectacular and shitty, expensive and cheap. In a way it was a lesson in economics. Specifically, that inside a market things will have a relation to each other that makes sense; while there may be outliers, the fact is that if your friend knows someone who found a perfect place, and is only paying half what you are for, there's a reason. I don't know what it is, but there is one, and we can find it. There's a tap-dancing school upstairs and an experimental cockroach breeding facility in the basement... something.
So yes, Hong Kong is one of the most expensive cities in the world when it comes to real estate. I am sure it's in the same league as NYC and Tokyo. What that means is that we're paying $3.80/sq foot in HK; in Toronto, our condo is netting us $1.70. So easily twice as much.
The other thing we've learned about HK apartments is the weird way they factor stuff. I guess it's fair enough, becauase everyone knows the rules, but to me it's just plain weird. so in determining your square footage, you measure from the OUTSIDE of the wall. So it's GROSS. WHich if you have thick walls kinda sucks, you're losing some serious space there. But it does not stop there. Then you take all of the common areas on your floor, and divide that by the number of flats on your floor and that's your portion of the area. The result being that your '500 sq ft' flat could really be 400 or 300 in terms of ACTUAL space you'll be living in. I didn't understand what they meant by 'older buildings have better efficiency'. Now I do. An older building (blessedly like the one we got) has 8 units on a floor, with narrow halls, and very little public space. A newer one is much more like you get in Toronto, or it has only two units on a floor (tiny footprints). The result is that you're paying for half of the hallway, instead of an eighth of it. The easiest way to figure it is this. Take the entire footprint of the building (let's say that it covers 2000 sq/ft. Then there are 2 units per floor. So you've got 2 1000' units. The reality is that it's way more like 600 sq ft usable (an efficiency of 60%)!!
It's completely daft. In any case, that's the system here. We've got a 660 sq ft with about 80% efficiency, meaning we're living in 530 sq ft. But it's lovely, and recently renovated and has a beeee-uuuuuu-ti-ful view (pics to follow.)
Sorry about the digression into the economics of Hong Kong real estate. The short version for those who didnt' read all that is this: Hong Kong Expensive.
After searching through some truly appalling places for a place to live (horrible at the best of times - and truly a shitty prospect when you don't speak the language, know the city or have half a clue what to expect) we finally settled on this lovely place in Tin Hau.
That's near Causeway Bay for those of you who know a bit about HK and HERE, for those who just want a quick map link.
I suppose I could go into a long and detailed story of how we ended up with a wack-job landlady (which we did) but in the grand scheme of landlords we've had, she never touched herself in front of us, and that's more then can be said about the guy in Mississauga when we lived there (but that's another story entirely)!!
So we moved in on Saturday. We've got a mattress, more furniture is being delivered this week and next. And at some point I've got to buy and iron and a kettle.
We're feeling pretty good right now about things. I can't speak for Eric, but I haven't had any moments of severe home-sickness. There's been a few moments of course, but all in all I think I'm holding up well. We have not made many new friends yet, but we're trying. I met a guy in the swimming pool near my house the other evening and he asked "So do you drink beer on the weekend?" to which I replied "Dude, that's about all I do on the weekend!" so we're going to meet up sometime for a pint.
Now that we've moved in, and don't have to spend every evening looking for an apartment, I think things will settle down. I plan to join badminton soon, once I figure out where they are. That's about all to say for now.
More anon.
