The apartment and the neighbourhood

This blog should answer most of your questions about our apartment and our neighbourhood.  Marion suggested that I include photos of the local cleaners, cafe, grocery stores, and other places where we "hang out".

Let me introduce you to our building:  the Palatial Crest on Seymour Road, Mid-Levels. Many of the high-rises in Hong Kong have fancy names, like mansion or palace.  This are often misnomers, as in the case of the infamous and notorious Chungking Mansions in Kowloon.  (Michael Connelly's latest book, 9 dragons, takes place in L.A. and H.K.,  including a fast-paced, gruesome scene at Chungking Mansions)  Our building is decked out for Chinese New Year, which begins on Feb. 14th.  There are so many plants in the lobby, that it's hard to walk through to the elevators!

Welcome to Flat E, 28/F .  Thanks to the Pelcs for the beautiful mezuzah adorning the front door.  The tiny kitchen is on your right as you walk in.  We still haven't figured out how to use the convection oven.  The fan works, but we can't seem to get any heat.  Another call to the property manager...  Our major investment last week was a two-slice toaster.  We are quickly becoming Japan Home Centre's best customers (the Canadian Tire of Asia).  There's a small storage room off the kitchen.  Jeff assembled an Ikea shelving unit so that we can store cleaning stuff and extra tupperware on it.

These are photos of our dining room and living room.  The armoire was ordered from a store in Macau.  We were hoping to keep it in the third bedroom (our storage/dressing room), however it didn't fit through the door.  Jeff even removed the door to the room, we dragged it down the hallway, and it still wouldn't fit.  At least it matches the dining room set!

Kudos to Jeff who assembled the Ikea wall unit in the living room.  This week a "techie" from PCCW (the internet/cable company) got us all organized with our t.v. and dvd player.  We have HD and sports look very real!  We also have HBO on demand - pretty good movies, which should make up for the fact that the rest of the channels have very little worth watching.  The remote control has a button that can switch the language from Chinese to English.  This prompted Andrew to ask:  Will it also switch from ping pong to hockey?

We never pull the blinds down in the living room since the view is spectacular.  (By the way - we are using our ottomans to store all of our files!) 

Bedrooms two and three are small, even by Merton Street standards.  Bedroom two has the trundle bed (very comfortable), as well as built-in closets.  We're using the dining room armoire for overflow jackets and sweaters.  Bedroom three has become our storage locker.  (We even considered renting a parking spot in the building and putting up a self-storage unit on it).  However, it has our favourite piece of furniture - the Chinese shoe cabinet!  

The master bedroom has just enough room for our queen sized bed, a small table, and a thin floor lamp (which we carried home on the bus from Ikea - no taxis in sight).  There are windows with more great views on two sides of the room.

Here's a photo of the Garden Cafe, which is a comfy coffee shop with good cappuccino and Starbucks prices.  It's three doors away.

Wellcome is one of the two small supermarkets on our street.  The other is Park 'n Shop (alias Park 'n Fly).  You'll notice the bus stop in front of Wellcome.  Jeff takes the 23 bus to his office in Causeway Bay.  Other buses take us to the MTR (metro) or the airport express.  The cleaners that we use is two blocks away.  It's called Kau Kwong Self-service Laundry.  We're not sure why they call it "self-service", since they do all the work.  A large load of laundry - washed, dried, ironed, folded - costs $3.50CDN.  Jeff's shirts are also a bargain, compared with Toronto prices.

Funny sign of the week (thanks to Joan who took this at Starbucks in Kowloon):

Superbowl in Hong Kong (Joan and Dale at Dan Ryan's restaurant 7 a.m. Monday morning in HK):

Guess the mystery foods:

KUNG HEI FAT CHOI