The Good and the Ugly

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The Good and the Ugly

Tomorrow is officially 3 weeks here. I had a great post written out last week, but trying to upload to the blogger site has been difficult because it is in Chinese. So needless to say, I lost it. I am going to try to re-create it …

The Ugly

Opening a bank account (at the 2^nd bank):

There are so many pieces of paper that you need to get this done, it’s crazy. Jonathan needed to show his employment letter, which he thankfully had, but needed to modify, because they couldn’t accept a hotel address on it. When she asked me for my employment letter, I told her that I wasn’t working and that I was a dependent. Well, guess who can’t be on the account now! Not a huge deal until she says, “If you come back the next day, we will be able to add you to the account. Does this make sense? Not to me either. After the company faxed the letter, we could finally open the account – most likely the next day. She then says to me, “Mrs. Collins, you don’t need to come back”. Jonathan just shook his head at me, because he could see that this was not going to be good. Thankfully, I kept calm and didn’t cause and international incident.

The price of American Products:

I found that the purse that I had been carrying around for about a week was just too small for what I needed. I really wanted a new Coach purse and after moving to the temporary apts, found that the outlet mall near us (a 10 min walk) has one! SCORE! After doing some research, I knew that I wanted a large tote or the Diaper bag. I know this sounds weird, but I would really be great with all its holders and compartments. I found the one that I wanted, but it was close to $800 US. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This was at the outlet. No go. I went to another outlet and found an $11 purse that seems to be doing quite well. (UPDATE: I went back to the outlets yesterday and now it is 40% off. I may ask JC if I can get it now. At $400, I don’t think I could get it here cheaper after shipping).

Hallmark Cards: $8 US … not going to happen

Apartment Hunting: Apartment hunting here is much like buying a house in the US. We wanted a 3 bedroom 2 bath apt with a washer and an oven. We originally looked in Discovery Bay on Lantau Island. When we toured it, it didn’t have the feel that I wanted to get from HK. It didn’t have any wet markets or even Chinese restaurants near by. It felt more like a combination of Panama City beach and Disney World. We looked at some apts in Happy Valley, and almost instantly, decided that is the place we wanted to be. We found an apt that we wanted, put an offer in that was $HK2000 less than what they wanted. They ended up rejecting our offer for one that was $HK2000 over the asking price of the apartment. I didn’t want to get into a bidding war, so we just moved onto our second choice. This had everything we wanted except the oven. They have accepted our offer and even are giving us a new washing machine. Everything happens for a reason.

Transferring Money from the US:

Total debacle. Next time we will find out how much cash we can bring into a country and travel with that. This was a time consuming and gut wrenching process. We had to get my parents involved along with Western Union. Just as an FYI, Western Union is the way to go if you ever need to send money internationally. (Make sure you have the name spelled correctly and include their full name as it appears on their passport. This is a bit of info that they passed along to us, not one that we got to experience first hand … thankfully.)

The Good:

This place is CLEAN: I have seen a ton of people cleaning around here. You don’t see trash in the street, cigarette butts anywhere (you can get fined here), or graffiti anywhere.

Public Transportation:

What an awesome thing. We take the MTR everywhere. When we move to Happy Valley we will be taking a mini-bus (seats 16 people), tram and bus along with the MTR.

Cabs:

Super cheap. Jonathan will be able to take a cab from Central to our apt for about $HK40 (about $6US) when he comes home late.

Food:

Awesome! We have been going to restaurants that are more commercial along with the Mom and Pop shops. The Mom and Pop ones are the best. They don’t always have English menu’s or pictures, so we either point to someone’s food that looks good, or I know just enough to get us stuff that we will like.

People:

Patience. The people here have the patience of Saints. I think that you have to knowing that a gazillion people all want to get to the same place around the same time. For example, when a full MTR gets off at a stop, there are only so many escalators to go around. People merge together nicely; no one’s pride is hurt if someone cuts in front of someone else. The only time that this has really been a problem is when I have been separated from the girls and can’t see them.

Money:

Other than the cost of apartments, (which really depends on where you want to live) things are not much more expensive here.

Grocery:

They have wet markets that sell fresh seafood, veggies and meat. These are great places, and the girls and I usually go to them 3 times a week. The regular grocery is nice too. They have many items from the US. The only thing that we haven’t found that we are looking for is Syrup. (I did make my own the other day with brown sugar and water).