Friday

The end of another week approaches, and Sonia flies back in tonight.

I went out before breakfast this morning to see if the laundry was open - it has been closed all week because of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Things were getting a little bit dire - down to the last shirt and pair of clean socks. Luckily they were back on the job, so I raced home and took two big bags of washing and a few shirts down to be washed. I now need to head back there late in the afternoon to collect the washing (shirts will be ready tomorrow). It is almost as good as living with your parents, except that these guys charge you.

I must remember to finish cleaning before Sonia gets home - this will be her first night/weekend in the new apartment, so we need to impress her with how nice the place is...

New gym

Well today I signed up at a new gym for a month. The old gym membership was through the serviced apartment company, so when we moved out the membership stopped. Then last week I was staying with Sonia at the hotel in Bangkok so there was the hotel gym available. Since getting back to Hong Kong I have been keeping an eye on the HK website to see if anyone wants to sell their gym membership - transferring from someone else is much cheaper. Alas, none this week. So I joined the gym for one month. That takes us up to the time we leave for America, after which I need to have something longer term in place. I guess I am gambling on people who started the new year with good intentions, and who now realise that they are not going to keep it up. And so want to recoup some of their investment, which I can help with.

Monty Python

I have been watching the original Monty Python's Flying Circus on DVD. There are a total of 14 DVDs in the series, with 3 or 4 episodes on each one. I'm up to disc 4, and it is interesting seeing how the style evolved over time. The first couple of episodes were not overly funny, but as things progressed there is a lot of good satire in there. The current episode is showing a sketch of a guy who is trying to jump the English Channel... And re-watching "The Spanish Inquisition" is hilarious.

Dropped the Mac off to the service centre this morning. It's decided to hang every few minutes, or if it doesn't feel like hanging, it reboots instead. The guy at the centre thinks it is probably a problem with the power supply. In 5-7 days I should know what the problem was...

Critics

Everyone's a critic! Well, not really everyone, just blisters. Predictive text on the mobile phone strikes again...

Bangkok

Your base location in Bangkok matters. A lot. Where you are living and working defines the amount of time you will spend in traffic. In the central area, much of that time will probably be spent sitting in your car stationary. In order to get from the hotel to an area 2 stops away on the skytrain (about 10 minutes walk) can easily take more than 30 minutes in a taxi if you are not lucky with the traffic. Sometimes I sit in the taxi with a slight feeling of awe when I think of the number of people in Bangkok. That often leads me to think of the wasted man-hours that there traffic jams represent. Bangkok could be so much better off if they did something about the traffic. Probably a aig jump in GDP....

Ex-colleagues

Well, the week continues in Bangkok. Today includes coffee with a Prudential alumnus from Japan (now working for Generali in Bangkok), followed by lunch with two people who porkdeworked for Tacit (now with Bravura) in the UK. They are in Bangkok on a stopover on a trip to NZ. It is amazing how people get around, and in Asia you learn that you often meet up where you do not expect.

Bad Fish

Clearly it had been too long since the last bout of food poisoning. In fact I struggle to recall the last time I was unlucky on the food front around Asia.

I got to Bangkok and met Sonia at the airport, and we made our way to the hotel as normal. Thinking that we would eat healthy (losing weight for P&T's wedding and all), we purchased some salad and tuna sashimi for dinner. Sonia tried one piece and said "the texture is strange - too soft". Having eaten some pretty soft fish before, I thought that it was indeed soft but still fine, and so finished the rest of it.

By 10pm I was in trouble. Cramping stomach, etc. Still awake at 12:30 in the morning, and slept very little that night. I ended up staying in bed the next morning while Sonia went to work, eventually getting up about 1pm. The day was spent sitting by the pool for the afternoon, not eating and just drinking water. That night I was in bed and wanting to sleep by 9pm.

Today has been better, although I am still not ready to eat sashimi again! Managed 35 minutes walking in the gym before I started to feel a little queasy in the stomach, at which point I took it as a sign that I had exercised enough for today. I guess that will teach me to be a little more careful, although as I mentioned we have not had much trouble before...

Friday

Well, another week draws to a close... I have basically finished the move to the new apartment today, and just have some bits of cleaning to do. Two dinners cooked, and the place is starting to feel a bit more like a home. Tomorrow I have to hand back the keys to the old place, get a haircut, and print and post a change of address letter to the insurance company. Then pack to fly to Bangkok on Sunday morning.

This update comes to you from the gym again, where I have been advised that the got water is still unavailable. Even though it was on last night! Never mind, a cool shower is enough after a good workout.

My gym habit is usually reading the Economist magazine, which comes every Friday. I have learnt a lot about the world and history from reading it (I am sure some of it is a bit slanted, although you know that economists are famous for straddling fences). For example last week's copy has a good summary of the history between Israel and Palestine - none of which I recall being taught at school. Or maybe it was and I was asleep at the time...

Moving part 3

Well today I moved the computer, screen, and other final bits and pieces from the old apartment. Luckily the heavy lifting was already completed yesterday, so today was not so bad.

And then I get a message from Sonia (in Bangkok) asking whether it would be ok to move all of her office's stuff into our apartment. So off I trot down to her office to pack it all up. 7 more boxes. At least this time the Man With A Van will help carry the stuff upstairs (the company is paying - "cheapskate" I hear you say?) tomorrow morning.

After packing the boxes, it was off to the gym. On arriving, I was informed that the hot water was off. They were fixing it (still). It has been off for the past 3-4 days, but they were always warning that there might not be enough hot water. This time I was warned that there was zero hot water. But since I celebrated my first night in the new apartment (last night) with nachos, I thought the gym was a must today. In the end the water was tepid rather than cold.

Last night: well, given the location I had expected some noise. In the end there was a bit more than I expected - mostly the restaurants throwing bottles into the rubbish. Might need to get heavy curtains on the bedroom. Still, you want the location, you take what comes with it.

It was cold - the apartment does not get any direct sun during the day. Luckily there was a sort of blanket as well as the duvet, so I did not freeze. But I am starting to realise (a) how cold it gets and why a lot of the locals have heaters, and (b) that it should be quite pleasant once we hit summer. The roof does get lots of sun, and breakfast (muesli and coffee) up there with the sudoku was very great. I can see that becoming a regular thing. And the rats are very friendly (stiring Sonia!).

Moving continued

Ok, so yesterday was pretty tough going. The apartment is actually on the 6th floor if you include Ground Level, so it was a lot of weight to be carrying up a lot of stairs.

Today continued in the same vein. I slept last night at the old apartment, and started the day with a trip to bring more suitcase-loads containing clothes and food. I got a taxi to take me, given that there was a fair bit to carry. Then I spent the rest of the morning cleaning the fridge and the kitchen stuff. Washed all of the plates, cutlery (both were new from Ikea), and other bits and pieces.

Then took off to Sonia's work at about 2pm, to check for mail and to collect the coffee machine. Before picking up the coffee machine, I stoped to get takeaway char siu (BBQ pork) and rice from a place just across the road from the office. Very good, and it only costs HKD 33 for lunch - a bargain!

The coffee machine is pretty heavy. Getting it from level 66 of Sonia's building, down to street level and then outside and into a taxi was hard work. It is also a bit ungainly given the shape and size. By this time it was about 4pm, and traffic was building up. Elgin Street is part of a one-way system, and the road that the office is on is facing the wrong way. We crawled most of the way, and then I had to carry it up the stairs. Still, it is now ensconced in the kitchen. I have filled it with water and left it to heat up for a couple of hours, and will try running some through once I have finished writing this. The plan is for tomorrow's breakfast to be on the roof in the sun (assuming it is shining) with freshly made coffee... will let you know how it works out.

Tomorrow will probably involve moving the Mac, screen, and last bagful of stuff from the old apartment, then cleaning the floor of the new apartment.

Moving in

Well today was the first "day of moving" into the new apartment. It actually began last night with me packing boxes and suitcases at the current place (after going to the gym).

I had booked the "Man with a Van" to collect the stuff at 9am, and he arrived on the dot. There were 3 big boxes (think the size of M&D's TV), plus four suitcases (two big, two carry-on). Even with all of that, there is still stuff left at the old apartment that must be moved before the end of this week. Just goes to show how you quickly accumulate stuff - although this does represent what we have been living on for the past 18 months, and two of the boxes contained only new crockery that we bought just before leaving Tokyo.

Anyway, for those of you who follow this, remember I mentioned that the new place is on the 5th floor of a walkup building (no lifts)? Well in order to avoid paying too much to move the stuff (cutbacks!), I arranged for the man with the van to deliver the stuff to the ground floor. So I spent the next hour walking up and down the stairs carrying boxes and suitcases. Easy on the first one, much harder by the time you get to the last one. In fact the last box held the bulk of the heavy plates so I ended up leaving it on one of the landings and shuttling a carry-on bag up and down until I could carry what was left in the box.

The landlord had ordered a new desk and arranged for it to be delivered between 10 and 12, so I spent the morning unpacking. Then off to Ikea to pick up a few things (including towels, Sonia!). Once more up the stairs carrying bags...

I am now sitting in Cafe O (refer to map) recuperating. You will see from the map how close this is to the apartment, so I am sure we will become even more regular customers than we are already.

The worst bit is that I know I have to make at least one more trip up the stairs today. My next stop is the Japan Home Store up the road, where I need to get cleaning stuff. This must be delivered to the apartment so that I can spend time tomorrow cleaning (just dusty because no-one has lived in the apartment for a while).

Finally, to whomever left the comment, I was writing on the mobile phone rather than blackberry. But yes it is a direct result of the predictive text and me being at the gym at the time and so not paying as much attention as I should have!

The weekend

What to write this time? Well it is still cold. So cold that I sat cv good at home last night working on the computer and watching tv, in a sweatshirt - inside. Today continues to be cold, but not so bad. One advantage of the reason is that it tends to be clearer - most of the cold days have been accompanied by blue skies and little pollution. And so wandering around has been fairly pleasant (if you discount the morons who do not look where they are going - whatever the are doing on their mobiles is clearly much more important).

Took the escalator and MTR to church this morning - saved about HKD60 in taxi fare, and took about 45 minutes. Not sure if getting up 25 minutes earlier is worth the HKD60 in savings. We will have to see.

Sonia is flying to Hanoi today, returning to Bangkok next Sunday. I am also arriving in Bangkok next Sunday for the week.

This week will be spent moving into the new apartment, getting supplies, and working out what is missing...

Another Update

What to say this time? This update comes to you from 1 Wellington Street aka the gym. I am sitting on the bike, attempting to maintain about 90 rpm. It is Friday night, and Sonia texted me earlier to say that she is heading for the hotel spa tonight (she is in Bangkok). So I guess I lose on that one. The gym is surprisingly busy given the day and time.

Went hunting for curtains today but without success. The trip was not wasted though, as I took the opportunity to check out a supermarket that I heard stocked Japanese groceries. Sure enough, the best selection I have seen in HK so far. 300 hkd later, I am now supplied with the makings for miso soup and soba dipping sauce. Tomorrow, back to looking for curtains.

Well, time to get off the bike and move to the treadmill to run for a while...

Gyms

January is definitely proving that New Years resolutions are real. The gym has never been busier. Hopefully most people will prove the cliche and give up soon so that it becomes easier to get at the machines again. Maybe gyms should discount fees for regulars during january because we are not getting the same level of service as usual?

Apartments - the conclusion

Ok, please hold your applause / laughter until the end...

We are signed up for a new apartment for a 6-month lease. It is on Elgin Street, smack bang in the middle of the Central / Soho area. This is a trendy area, full of restaurants and cafes.





Click here for a larger map.

The map also shows the location (if you click the link just above) of the current apartment, and the gym that I have been going to. It takes about 10-15 minutes to walk from the current apartment down to the gym. Shelley Street is the escalator that runs between Central and Mid-levels, so I can walk out the door and about 10 meters to the escalator. Great once/if I get a job...

One possible cause for laughter. This is an old building. Which has been done up a little bit, and is populated with what appears to be a good crowd. There are five floors to the building, so it's not huge. But... because this is an old building, there is no lift. You have to climb the stairs, which are narrow. And the apartment is on level 5. But at least this means we also have use of the roof space, which is set up almost like a BBQ area. I am looking forward to taking my breakfast/coffee up to the roof (one flight of stairs) each morning, and possibly doing the same with dinner. Of course I need to figure out how to eat through a face mask for those days when HK pollution is bad. But it has been great since we got here - possibly something to do with winter - so maybe it won't be too bad?

Second cause for laughter. I realised after agreeing to take it, that there is no washing machine/dryer. Oh well, I guess that means we will be sending everything out to the laundry. So maybe not a cause for laughter after all? Laundry here is charged by weight - you pay HKD XX per lb. And it is cheap. I paid HKD 40 (about USD 5) for two big bags of washing the last time I got it done. And they will iron the shirts for you!

Vegetables - I remembered that I need to tell about our experience of the wet markets so far. When we lived here the first time, we would not go near the wet markets, and bought everything from Park n' Shop or Wellcome or CitySuper. All of which are expensive for fresh stuff. This time, we have ventured into the markets a couple of times. Vegetables and fruit are sold by the lb. Cherries for HKD 40 per lb, and salad vegetables (lettuce, etc) for HKD 24 per lb. That means salads for about NZD 5 per lb. This seems to be pretty good, and is certainly much better than how we did it last time we were here. Of course the lettuce is probably full of lead, arsenic, etc....

Back to the apartment story. I sign the lease tomorrow and move in on Monday. Need to get the boxes across from the current place to the new one (I need to find a "man with a van" service), get some curtains for the main window in the lounge (one full wall), some towels, and probably order some groceries from Park n' Shop (they deliver, although they will probably only deliver once when they realise they have to carry up five floors). Also arrange internet access somehow, and satellite TV (or decide to watch DVDs and Chinese TV). Not sure about getting a phone unless it comes with the internet access.

I am meeting the agent at the apartment this afternoon to measure for curtains and check that the airconditioners have been fixed...

Apartments

Well we have been looking at apartments over the past week, and they now blend into an amorphous image in our minds. One more to look at tomorrow, then we need to come to a decision.

The only one that we really, really, like, is (of course) too expensive. The current tenants have bought an apartment and need someone to take over their contract. However they started renting when prices are high, and now they are not. So they need to get as much as possible to reduce the amount they will end up contributing themselves. We'd told them what price we would go to, but are not really expecting them to agree to it (about HKD 10,000 less than their asking price). Oh well, never mind.