Pottery

I remember pottery class in High School. It wasn't fun.

Farewell Gardenview Gardens

After 8 solid years, it's time to say goodbye. Call it poor timing but I have to hand the keys back on  Friday, which means annual leave. Four days ago, I still had not secured a home. I did have a contingent. It involved packing all my belongings save a suitcase into temporary storage and then moving into a rock bottom hotel. One of my colleagues was living in a "Hotel" near work for 200 HKD a night, that works out to be roughly 6000 HKD/month. Which, assuming fresh towels and daily house keeping is a bargain for Hong Kong. 

Fortunately I managed to view and find an apartment 3 days ago, sign the lease and pay the deposit 2 days ago, receive the keys 1 day ago and finally, move out of my old apartment and into my new apartment today. Couple of points here: I have accumulated a lot of stuff over the last 8 years. Pretty sad to be leaving this neighbourhood. Very excited to be moving into a new area. I pay 2000 HKD to some movers, say farewell to the concierge and leave Grandview Gardens.

48 hour water and tea fast

The apartment still smells. My housemates have left yet the smell insidiously lingers. Is this the offensive smell that my mother complained about when I lived in Sydney?

I wonder what the effect of this noisome would have on prepubescent females; they would gush and swoon leaving me with unexplainable pile of teenage bodies. Anyway. The first four days of the new year have been excess: Oolaa, Cha Cha Wan, Yung Kee, Tsim Chai Kee, Emacks and Bolio, Fu Sing, San Xi Lou, Carbone, Flaming Frangos and Tai Cheong. Non-stop eating.

Out of guilt and as an attempt to level out the volume of food I attempt my first 48 hour fast. Just water and green tea. Noticeable drop in body temperature and keto-breath that would also leave me with an unexplainable pile of bodies. All in all, aside from some jitters and the occasional lapse in focus I'm feeling pretty good.

I mentally put together my list of 2016 resolutions and prepare break fast at Island Tang with my uncle and auntie.

Currently reading: "Look Who's Back" - Timur Vermes

June 21st: International Yoga Day

I have a sprained hamstring and a discombobulated shoulder, both results of reckless abandon at jiu jitsu. I attribute this to old age, I am no longer that twenty one year old blessed with youthful recovery time. Despite all of this I'm unusually obdurate about attending the inaugural International Yoga event.

My left eye opens at 6:30 am. I rub my face, groan and desultorily search for my phone. First thing's first, I need to stop the alarm. Phone, found. Alarm, off. I open my second eye and peek under the curtains. The sky is cloudy. Ok, that adjective fails to paint the picture, the sky is threatening. It's a struggle prising myself out of bed at this ungodly hour. There's messages on my phone from a few hours ago - "Out?" - sender, last seen online 5:32 am.

Decision made. I have breakfast and put on my yoga gear. 7:30 I reach to open the front door, my entire apartment is enveloped in darkness and the early morning silence is replaced by a distinct muffled roar. It's raining. Wait, no, it's absolutely pissing down. Well, can't say I didn't try! I change back into my PJs and crawl back into bed. I can't sleep, the rain stops.

My life is unnecessarily complicated, the internal monologue that guides and directs me down paths is fraught with indecision and supreme laziness. I finally arrive at Sun Yat Sen, the field is filled with people. It's an excellent turn out, especially considering the weather. There's lots of families, a plenty of people from all walks of life.

I manage to grab one of the last remaining yoga mats. The event has not managed to escape the precipitate precipitation - I spend the next five minutes wringing the water out of the yoga mat. It's a relaxing yoga sessions, basic postures with nothing too intense. The final pose is savasana. I lie there on my back with my eyes closed whilst listening to the peaceful soundtrack being played over the loudspeakers. I feel the drops of water fall onto my face, the rain comes down steadily, some people stand and make for shelter, I'm already wet and I slowly drifting back into sleep ...

Commute

Life in Hong Kong will never be the same! Gone is the 10 minute stroll to work. Our office has moved from Exchange Square out to Taikoo Place. I'll let that settle in, that's an additional 25 minute commute to work. You know you live in a bubble of convenience when a 35 minute, door-to-door commute provokes a new blog entry.

I still reminisce those times when weeks, nay, months that would pass without me leaving the 1 km radius of my comfort zone.

One of these is not like the other

I woke up this morning with beer and the latest issue of National Geographic in my fridge. There were also new messages on my phone "God I hope you're alright", "I'm changing now" and "What are you doing?". Most people, if presented with this scenario would be slightly perplexed, and I will be honest, it took me a few moments to realise what was going on here. Conflicted with choice, I grabbed the milk (why I had originally opened the fridge) and the Nat Geo. The magazine was crisp and cold, it felt sterile and new, I momentarily considered storing all of my literature in the fridge. Sanity prevailed and I sat down and ate my oats whilst replaying the events of the prior evening. 

It all started at the Sevva rooftop bar. We, our team, were celebrating the recent marriage of a colleague. Mid Autumn had just passed and as expected, the weather was cooler, making for a lovely evening to be amongst the Hong Kong Skyline. I received a message from a girl, it contained a picture of butterfly in a jar, childhood innocence or animal cruelty? I wasn't sure, I was four beers deep and toasting with a glass of champagne. It was also Friday and Friday's are hands down the best day of the week. Turns out the butterfly in a jar was a present for her friend's house warming party.

Drinks eventually turned to into dinner and dinner turned into home time. It was still early, and I walked home feeling rather proud that I wasn't drunk and that it was still before midnight. It also felt a little unusual going home so early, I immediately began to plan my day knowing that the Shaolin Mafia were about to take on Dragon Dash the following day (see next post for explanation). 

New message alert, it's another message from Butterfly Girl asking if I want to come to the house warming party. Why not, the party is in Sheung Wan and it's still early. Realising that I can't show up empty handed I walk into the nearest 7/11 and grab some alcohol; beers. Perusing the store, I look for a suitable house warming gift. Cantonese Music DVDs, Umbrellas, Condoms, Chewing Gum, Chinese Gossip Magazines, I grab the National Geographic. Shortly after, that undeniable feeling, I'm lost, call it coincidence but her phone battery has also died, I wander Bonham Strand for the better part of 5 minutes and realise the futility of it all. It's just after midnight, I open a beer and head home.

"I hate these blurred lines" - Robin Thicke

Absolutely Rental (Part 2)

A few months ago I received a message from my real estate agent, it was sent on behalf of my landlord. The message stated that my lease would be ending in October and that the landlord would allow me to extend my contract. The catch being, that a rate rise of 10% would be incurred. I told them I would consider the offer and let them know my decision by the end of September.

My current apartment is great, the location, the finishings for the price was good value. However, there were little things that annoyed me: the en-suite, the lack of storage, the small-ish kitchen and I was starting to get a bit bored of the neighbourhood. I decided that I would explore the market and see 'what else was out there'. I contacted my reliable agents from two years ago and embarked on what would be my second most testing experience with Hong Kong property.

Forty viewings in, I was reminded of the nightmarish Hong Kong rental market. Despite expanding my search to Causeway Bay and Wan Chai the extra districts proved to be fruitless. It was my last viewing that convinced me to stay at my current apartment. I was scheduled to see an apartment after work. The landlord was currently staying in the apartment and an appointment had to be made. I arranged a viewing with the agent at 7 pm.

Having escaped work early we managed to get to the apartment early at 6:50, we proceeded upstairs and found the front door ajar. How odd. The agent knocked on the door, "hello?". No answer, again we knocked and as we pushed the door open the landlord greeted us at the door. She was wearing nothing but a robe (that she was busily tying up) and a sheepish look on her face. "Uh, hi" she said, "welcome, come in". We walked in and immediately down the corridor to the left was the bedroom, I stuck my head in and saw a stark naked guy on the bed, he was frantically putting clothes on. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on here.

Shocked, I pretended to ask questions about the apartment. "So how do you find the size of the kitchen?" (Who shows somebody around an apartment in a satin robe?). "You mentioned that this place is completely furnished? Including the sofa, and erh, the bed?" (The very bed where that naked dude was lying?). "Twenty Two thousand per month?" (I need to get out of here!). "Let me think about it, and get back to you" (Screw this!). Upon leaving I messaged my agent and told him I would accept the new terms and conditions. Looks like I'll be here for at least another 12 months!

Next thing you know, they're all grown up ...

It's a little sad actually, not having somebody to chat with when you get home from work. Actually, even if you don't talk to them it's nice to know that there's somebody there. After 10 months, my living room has been returned and I have lost a house mate. Good story actually, despite the initial set back he managed to find a job at Goldman Sachs and find his own apartment. Don't think he could have planned it better.

So with my living room back and less obligation, I find myself with a lot more spare time. Better start getting this blog back up to date, especially since I've received a "Thanks for letting me crash on your couch" gift (see below). Thanks bud!

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At this moment in time, my building, Grandview Gardens is being serviced by two Internet/TV providers. The notorious i-Cable and the expat-friendly PCCW/Netvigator/Now TV. The limitations are as such:

Options	iCable	PCCW/NOW
Price	Starts from 75 HKD/month	Starts from 218 HKD
Bandwidth	10 MB*, 50 MB*, 110 MB*	8 MB
Contract	18 months	18 months
TV	i-Cable TV - Has EPL	Now TV - more expat friendly
Others	Reputation for Bad customer service	Horrible Now TV UI

The main difference between the two providers is that i-Cable can decouple their Internet from their TV offerings, whilst PCCW you have to get both. The other difference is, the bandwidth, this is not as simple as comparing apples to apples. PCCW offer a dedicated ADSL line to each customer. Whereas, i-Cable offers a fibre service to the building that is shared among all i-Cable users within the building. The draw card is that there is the "potential" for a larger bandwidth.

So heeding the warnings and opting for the higher bandwidth service I sign with i-Cable hoping that I will never have to deal with their customer service. For those who are interested, I signed for 50 MB line with Cable TV, initial Hong Kong server speedtest.net results are above. Online! Time to clear that backlog of blog posts.

Update:

• London server: Ping 632 ms, Download - 1.30 Mbps, Upload - 0.42 Mbps
• San Francisco server: Ping 174 ms, Download - 1.94 Mps, Upload - 3.58 Mbps
• Seoul server: Ping 91 ms, Download - 2.54 Mbps, Upload - 7.68 Mbps
• Sydney server: Ping 345 ms, Download - 1.34 Mpbs, Upload - 0.65 Mpbs

Connection can be intermittent - still undecided if I made the right decision going with iCable ...

Moving day

This apartment hunt has dragged me to all the nooks and crannies of Central Hong Kong. It has been an adventure that has led me down urine spilled alleyways, up the stairwells of nameless walk-up properties and countless journeys on the Mid-levels escalator. The upside is that I now have a familiarity with Hong Kong and the various stairwells, streets, buildings and shortcuts in and around Central.

My conversations have, for the most part followed a typical schematic. It started off with "Have you found a job?", eventually moving to "Have you found an apartment?" to finally "How's your new place?". It's funny, but you would think that after sleeping on a couch for such a long time I would have moved out immediately. This has not been the case. Despite having the keys in my possession for over a week I still haven't moved into my new place. The truth is that I have been waiting for the delivery of my mattress so I have a place to sleep (as opposed to a pile of clothes), but also deep down I know that I'm having stouts of separation anxiety. Anxiety derived from having to say goodbye to my friends and the living room that has been nothing short of hospitable over the last seven months. I take a look at the room that has housed me and say goodbye to the friends that I have seen almost every waking hour. There's a sadness and an appropriate slowness as I collect my belongings and leave.

I quickly snap out of this melancholic daze as it dawns on me that my apartment is not even a 10 minute walk away.  I enter my new apartment block and take the lift up to the eleventh floor. I approach the door which has a lightly brushed oak finish, to be honest, I hardly recognise it, it's been some time since I was last here. I turn the key, there's no click, no chambers moving, I turn it the other way, still nothing. This leads to some frenetic jiggling. My bag slides from my shoulder and I use two hands to work the key into the keyhole. Just as I'm about to prop my leg up against the door frame the door opens. A head sticks out from inside "Can, I, erh, help you?". A reasonable question. Especially considering that I'm bent over with my key in their door. "This isn't Apartment C is it?" I ask. "Nope, C's that one." indicating to the adjacent door. That explains everything, "... Hi, I'm your new neighbour!".

In other news, my housemate this week found out that his company MF Global after 250 years has filed for bankruptcy. It's alarming that a company whose roots date back further than the discovery of Australia can be taken down in the space of a year. The 8th largest Bankruptcy in history and the first US casualty of the European Sovereign Debt Crisis. So as the the Greeks head into referendum and the world slowly falls apart I look forward to nothing more than sleeping in my own bed.

Leased

Congratulations, they say. It's almost preposterous to think that I have seen over one hundred properties (84 single and 26 triple living arrangements). This isn't the first place that I've made an offer for, but it is the first place that the landlord has come back agreeing to my offer. One bedroom, unfurnished, open kitchen, oven, bright , modern and relatively central. I've met with the landlords, they don't speak much English, I don't speak much Cantonese. The contract, I sign. The deposit, 2 months rent for a two year contract with a one year break clause. Even then I still had hesitations, it's by no means my ideal apartment, I don't think I'll ever find that. But this little shoebox of a property will probably be as close as I can get with my budget and patience threshold. Congratulations, indeed.

First and foremost I need to buy a bed, once that's sorted I'll be looking to move out. I have most definitely overstayed my welcome, but it's been an excellent time living with two very close friends. Plenty of fun times, plenty of TV series and plenty of sport. Still I can't imagine how it feels to come home to me, the guy sleeping in the living room. Since I have started working, I've been helping out with the bills, chipping in for  electricity, water, gas and the helper. Still, how do I even begin to repay these guys?

"Spend a little more on your bed and shoes, because that's what you spend the most time in" - Heng, quoting somebody.

Absolutely Rental

When it comes to the priorities of settling down in a new country I would say occupation or a steady income is probably the most important. Coming in at a close second would be accommodation. This is where I still feel very dishevelled or very uncomfortable.

Waking each morning from a couch and living from a suitcase is no means a settled lifestyle. In fact, I feel about as comfortable as I imagine the UBS Rogue Trader felt the moment he found out about the Swiss Franc ceiling. Not to say that the accommodation hasn't been anything short of first class. I've had a huge living room, a cushy leather couch, broadband internet, a custom-made sheep rug and a massive 55" TV at my disposal. It's just I feel I've over welcomed my stay. Overstayed by six months. I have been here since the beginning of April! April, that was almost 2 seasons ago! That has got to be some record of dossing. I can already see all the chiropractors salivating at the thought of my mangled spine. It's not just my spine, think about the actual people who I'm staying with, I've become apart of the furniture.

Which probably makes you wonder, why haven't I moved out yet? Well, that's a very good question. Which is probably summed up best by describing the current Hong Kong Property Market. Shit. Succinct and deliberate. The market is so inflated it has forced buyers back into the rental market, which of course is saturated with tenants and a huge deficiency of properties. Basic supply and demand suggest that the prices can only do one thing, that is go up. Properties will appear and disappear in the market within a matter of hours. I might receive a call in the morning "I have a place which I think is perfect for you, do you want to view it this evening?" only to receive a follow up call a couple of hours later "Sorry, it was just leased, I'll keep looking for you". I originally had had an idea of what budget and what I could expect in return based on friend's experiences in the last year. However, speaking with property agents it appears prices on rental market have increased in the last 12 months - in some cases more than 25 percent!

With a budget and a will I have engaged the rental scene, viewing apartments in the Central, Mid-Levels and Sheung Wan area. This region of Hong Kong is extremely popular with foreigners, with a huge proportion of expat tenants occupying the high density area. Three weeks in and I've seen a lot of places but nothing that I can comfortably call home. I didn't really experience this in London as I was always flat-sharing, but Hong Kong is a different beast. Price per square foot, space efficiency rating, club facilities and city views are all factors in determining how much you will pay. I've seen Studios, 1 bedders, 2 bedders, walk-ups, tiny kitchens with a 1 stove elements, Hong Kong style wet-kitchens and bedrooms that barely fit a double bed. It makes London look spacious, it makes Australia look wasteful.

It's hard not to feel discouraged after seeing so many incompatible places yet I continue to arrange viewings each night after work. According to agents an average person will see anywhere between 5-10 places before they decide to sign the contract. I have seen at least 40 different places and don't feel like I'm getting close. The agents always try the hard sell saying that my budget and requirements aren't aligned. I give a non-committed answer and tell them that I'll think about it knowing that a decision has already been made. I figured if I'm going to be there for a year I might as well wait.

Am I too picky? Am I looking for something that doesn't exist? Does the thought of commitment cloud my judgement? These are questions I often ask myself, usually directed at relationships as opposed to property - uh, at least I'm consistent. Until then, I continue with the viewings and get comfortable with the idea of sleeping on the couch for a little bit longer ...