The Hunt for my Hong Kong Home

Hello everyone, and welcome to my spanking new blog. I hope you all enjoy it as much as you seemed to enjoy Tokyo Tales! I’ve been in Hong Kong now for four days, and every day has been damn busy. After arriving in HK on Friday, and house hunting all weekend, and starting my new job today, I’ve barely had a moment to spend online.

I wasn’t even quite sure what I was going to call this new blog. But tonight I finally chose a name. After eating a sort of yucky meal that was supposedly fish but could have easily have been offal while enduring strange glances from the locals in a tiny restaurant, I found myself wandering around yet another alien environment, breathing in strange, new, and slightly rancid smells, and yet again wondering, ‘Where the hell am I?’

I suppose this is a question that all travellers ask themselves over and over again… Where exactly AM I? How did I get here, so far away from home? What the hell am I doing here? But I suppose once you get over the initial resistance to change, and the initial period of adjustment, the strange becomes familiar, the weird becomes normal, and you no longer feel so lost. Hopefully my transition into Hong Kong life will be an easy one.

Anyway, enough with my ruminations, and on with the story of my hunt for a Hong Kong home.

I arrived here on Friday night – thankfully without any canceled flights this time – and was greeted at the airport by a driver holding up a sign with my name. ‘But I real reach!’ I thought to myself.

We jumped in the car and started driving from Lantau Island, where the airport is, over the bridge to Hong Kong Island, where I would be staying. The driver was a lovely guy who spoke four languages – Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Japanese – which made me feel sad that someone who could speak four languages was stuck chauffeuring expats around, while little old me who is mostly monolingual could get a big time job where drivers meet me at the airport holding up my name on a sign.

The hotel where I’m staying is really nice, up on the 37th floor with a great view of downtown Central and I can see a bit of Victoria Bay too.

View from my hotel room

But I only have two weeks to stay here in the hotel while I look for an apartment of my own. I also started working today, which means I need to find a place FAST. So after arriving on Friday night, I got up early on Saturday morning to go house hunting.

Statue Square, with a view of the old Courthouse, downtown Central. All these chicks are the hordes of Filipino nannies and maids who have no where else to relax on the weekends.

I jumped on the fast ferry from Hong Kong Island to Lantau Island to try to find my dream home – an nice big apartment with a view of the sea and mountains and greenery. Lantau is a simple 25-minute ferry ride away from Central, which to the local Hong Kongers is apparently entirely too far away, but really I thought it was quite pleasant, especially compared to the insanity of Tokyo train lines.

My first stop was Mui Wo. It was a quaint little place, with a number of sort of run-down apartment buildings, a little bar, a supermarket, a Turkish restaurant, a little hotel and a nice beach. It was quite scenic, with a nice market selling yummy seafood.

Yummy noodles and shrimp.

Unfortunately the apartments were absolute dumps, and all the sunburnt expats that were riding around on their bicycles looked quite dumpy too. Plus there were lots of stray dogs running around, and then some young Chinese guy came and told me that Jesus loved me, and I decided that Mui Wo was a bit too rustic for me.

The very scenic Silvermine Bay at Mui Wo

So, back onto the ferry I went, over to the bay next door. This private residential compound is completely resort-style, with its own beach, a golf club, pools, gyms, tennis courts, supermarkets, schools, restaurants, cafes, bars, and absolutely no cars. You get around on foot, on bicycle, on the internal minibus, or if you have the cash, golf carts! What fun! But best of all, because it’s off of HK Island and thus ‘too far away’, you can get very large apartments, with nice views of the sea, for an excellent price. Sounds good to me.

The waterfront boardwalk at the plaza, with views of Kowloon in the background

That day I saw many apartments, some nice, some not-so-nice, some smallish, and some huge, and then finally I think I found the perfect place. Two bedrooms, a nice balcony, a big living room, a dining area, wooden floors… beautiful! So, this weekend we will know for sure. But I really hope this is where we will live.

Well that’s all for now. I’ve got to get to sleep for another big day at work tomorrow. More updates coming soon.