I got the keys to the apartment and found Dale a job

Week of October 26

No touring to report this week. I took possession of our apartment on Saturday morning, so I spent the weekend shopping and trekking back and forth to the apartment. More on that later.

My cousin, Clifford, was in town over the weekend, so I met him for lunch on Saturday. Cathay Pacific managed to lose his luggage between Paris and HK, so he was attending his business meetings in jeans. I hope the bags catch up with him before he leaves for home this afternoon. We had a nice chat and he gave me hell for being too cheap to call my mother – Dale keeps in touch regularly. So I called her yesterday and we assured each other that everything is great in our lives.

The apartment is looking great. They renovated on Saturday and cleaned yesterday. I hope to start setting up tonight and will move in on Wednesday, when the bed is delivered.  Here are some photos taken with my BlackBerry.  Enjoy the view from the living room and bedrooms!  I'm sure you will be impressed with our modern kitchen, too!  The luxury item in our kitchen is an oven - most HK apartment do not have them.


Once I’m moved in, I’ll start to check out the shops and restaurants in the area. I tested the bus on Saturday afternoon. It was the equivalent of a rush hour, so I thought it would be a good time check – 30 minutes on the bus. Not bad.

I found Dale the perfect job. It combines books and organizing! And they are even advertizing it that way. To make it an even better combination, it’s only three blocks from the apartment and one away from the health club she plans to join. My friend Sarah told me about a used English book store near us called Flow Organic Bookshop. I checked it out yesterday. Floor-to-ceiling books in a tiny, cramped space. Outside the door, running up the stairs, are plastic bags filled with enough additional books to replace all those in the store. There is some semblance of partial order, but not much. When I got to the cash, I saw two signs. The first advertized, “Accidental shopkeeper wanted”. The second said, “Wanna have fun, playing around with books and help Flow being more organized?” Oh yeah, they’re only open from noon to 7:30, so it leaves plenty of time to go to the gym every morning. ‘Nuff said?

This week’s observations:

• Lucky numbers – the Chinese are very superstitious about numbers, especially bad are certain combinations of fours. Many buildings don’t have a 14th floor – unlike North America, 13 is ok. Also bad are 42 and 44 – my office tower has a “lower 43” and “upper 43” instead. One new residential project has been controversial for selling units on the 68th and 88th (especially lucky numbers) floors of a 50-something floor apartment. They just renumbered some bad luck floors. One legislator is trying to force them to number properly, claiming that it is dangerous for emergency crews who won’t know which actual floor to go to.

• Property prices are sky-high here. The aforementioned property sold at least one flat for HKD70,000 per square foot (CAD9,200!!). As a comparison, Toronto just passed the CAD1,000/sq. ft. mark last year in Yorkville. There is a real estate agency near our apartment called “Firstborn Property”. I think that’s the cost of their listings.

• Elevator buttons. The SARS crisis really hit HK hard. Now, every building has a clear plastic covering over the elevator floor buttons and a sign advising users that the covering is sanitized hourly. The most used button on all elevators is the “close door” button. In North America it’s there, but is usually useless because it’s on a timer. No amount of pushing will make a difference. Here, they work! The Hong Konger’s immediate step after punching his/her floor is to push the “close” button. Every second counts, I guess.

• British football fans take note – there is a Man Yiu Street and an Arsenal Avenue in Hong Kong. No Chelsea or Liverpool streets.

• Is it exploitation or market forces? There is no minimum wage in Hong Kong and I don’t think there is a formal social welfare program as we would recognize it. As a result, things are very difficult for the poor and uneducated. As a result, there appears to be little need for formal recycling programs here. In every commercial district you see people collecting paper cartons, metal cans, glass bottles, and other recyclables. I know they are probably dirt-poor, but it offers them some kind of income and significantly reduces the amount of trash that would otherwise be burned or sent to landfills.

That’s all for now.