I want to start with my special thanks to Gill, Saugat, and Shawn. I think you three are the only ones reading this blog…haha. Thanks! I’ll give honorable mentions to Analisa, Jason Demant, and Nevershake. Analisa said she is reading the blog but she hasn’t passed my “test” to see if people were reading my blog…I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt with an honorable mention. Jason Demant hasn’t passed the test yet either but he’s a follower along with Nevershake. For the record, I don’t know who you are, Nevershake, but I like you. For now, Maribel can be Nevershake because I know she’ll read this post too (even though she always shakes it on the dance floor).
Format Change: I’m not going with daily updates anymore but I’ll cover key topics, like this format change.
Apartment/Flat: I was living with Kenil, my cousin/boss, for the first couple of weeks but I needed to move because: 1) He’s my boss and that’s just weird; 2) He should have his space and I know he wanted it for when he may have “guests” over; 3) Lastly and most importantly, he lived on the Kowloon side and I needed to get to Central. So, I needed to figure this flat thing out quickly before he left for Germany for a 2 week work thing.
I used a few websites to find places (Asia Expats was the best, I believe; beware of scams/scammers, btw, if you’re every looking for places online or whatever). I only ended up looking at two places. The first place I ended up seeing twice because the agent that represented the place didn’t take down old posts that I responded to but instead of telling me that the place I was interested in was not available, he showed me the same place twice. This place sucked because the shower and the toilet were sharing the same space.
The second place was awesome and I figured I’d might as well not waste time and just jump on it. The list price was $7,500HKD/month but the agent said the price was negotiable. So I…uh…negotiated. I offered $6,500HKD/month and he accepted. Awesome! Only he calls me a few days before I plan on moving in to say someone offered $7,000HKD/month and that if I matched I still might have a chance. I figured this was the amount we were going to agree to in the first place when I low balled him and he, to my surprise at the time, accepted, so I said fine…$7,000. He called me back the next day and said were on for $7,000. Kenil thought I was going to lose the place but I told him I didn’t think there was anybody else and I think I was right. So, the day before I was supposed to move in he called and said the other guy who’s living at the flat is paying $7,200 and that she (the owner) wants me to pay that too. Now this is only like $30USD/month extra but I was pissed at this point. There was nobody else (I assumed) and I was moving in less than 24hrs from now; so, I told him he’s jerking me around too much and I wasn’t interested anymore…peace. He called me back 45 seconds later and said it was cool for $7,000. Yeah, you better believe it is. I’m the biggest hustler…ain’t nobody hustling me…haha
The place is cool, the location is cool, and the value is good for the location. Now the agent kept telling me not to tell my roommate how much I was paying or to lie because he was paying more than I was. Whatever…I won’t talk about it, however, it turns out (so far) that my roommate is cool as shit and he started talking to me about how the owner and the agent jerked him around in similar fashion too. We didn’t share how much the other was paying but it was interesting.
Banking/Finances: I know I’ve briefly mentioned banking before but I’ll mention it again. My first month check and deposit has been taken from my account but my HSBC account is broken up into three categories. Savings, Current (which I assume is checking), and foreign currency. There could be more but these are the three I see. For some reason, they put all my money into a savings account (same # as the checking account) but when the checks were withdrawn, it pulled from the current account that had nothing in it. There was no overdraw fee since this was my first “offense” but there was a minimal interest charge (less than $1 USD, I think). I went to the HSBC and resolved the issue so that my future rent checks don’t overdraw every month….just another pain in the ass banking experience. Also, I can’t waive my foreign transaction fees on my credit cards even though I’m living overseas unless I get a card here. Amex said if I disputed they would credit me but that’s just cheap.
Cost of Living: Speaking of cheap, a fully loaded cell phone plan (data, text, minutes, whatever) runs no more than $45USD/month (if my memory serves me right). That’s super cheap. I’ve just been rocking the prepaid phone plans since the contracts for phone plans are no less than 18 months. You know what’s not cheap? The Burberry trench coat Kenil bought for $10,000 HKD. $10,000! Sure it’s a nice coat but I told him it probably cost no more than $700 HKD to make (and I’m probably being nice given the fact that it was made with synthetic material…the 100% cotton one was $15,000 HKD…for cotton).
Macau: Going from cotton to Macau is about as good of a transition as I’m going to get right now and I think it’s a damn good one, given how different cotton and Macau may seem on the surface. I had to go to Macau to activate my working visa and when I got there I had two cabbies passed me up even though I was properly waiting in queue. The one that took me (I wanted to go and see the Ruínas de São Paulo…and did) almost didn’t even want to take me. A nice couple behind me in queue helped translate because there was a misunderstanding but who knows, it could have been racism. Perhaps they preferred it if I picked cotton! (You see, I told ya there was a connection…sorry to any offended but it did seem suspect and I was pissed at the time). Otherwise Macau was OK and I was only there for the working visa formality. I left at 2pm and was back by 6pm and it takes about an hour each way. I’ll have to go back some day with company.
Work: DHL, the company (I swear I’m getting lucky with these transitions) I work for is quite different than UTC. I went from a position that rarely had deadlines but success was easily measurable to a position that often has deadlines but success is subjective. The highest earner I saw on a daily basis in NY or CA maybe made $250K USD/year at best; now I see one of the global CEOs (DHL has many CEOs) on a daily basis and I’m sure he’s making over a mil. DHL has given me a few moments to sit with coworkers and learn some excel and power point tricks that I should have learned a long time ago (some of these tricks I learned in the past but I forgot them). The work is different, the people are different…everything is different. If for nothing else, I think the experience is good, I’m definitely learning new things, and diversifying my background.
Test 2: For a bonus picture that was left out of my HK photo albums, e-mail me on the side.
People: I could probably share a million things about the makeup of the people here but I’ll try to hit some key things I’ve noticed.
Expats/Foreigners = Central; Locals = Kowloon side (or other areas of HK Island). I like hanging out with both groups but rarely do you find expats/foreigners in large numbers on the Kowloon side or vice versa.
The girls/women I’ve met here so far don’t do hugs like they do in the states but they do this European kissing both cheeks things. It took me a while to get on board with the hugging thing back in the day (which the hugging thing ain’t so bad) but now this? It’s all good, actually, but it’s just different. It confused me the first time or two and I’m still not sure if everybody does this or just the slew of people I’ve met.
The other interesting thing is (if I haven’t mentioned this in previous posts) is how quickly people will exchange/ask for phone #s. I had 3 girls that I knew for mere minutes ask to exchange phone numbers. These aren’t necessarily girls who are interested in dating or whatever, they just want to hang out (or exchange #s…I dunno). Either way, I don’t think you’d ever see that in the states (ever is an exaggeration but seriously…maybe 3% of the girls in the states would do this, including Terry Tran).
The last two things I’ve noticed are: 1) 90% of the people I know are regular or social smokers. I know two California friends that would love this environment. 2) Everybody with the exception of my roommate (from the UK) speaks at least 2 languages (if not more) including this 100% Korean girl who speaks German but knows very little Korean.
*** side note (one and only): I think it is cool meeting people that speak a language and/or have an accent that is completely opposite to the language and/or accent you would think they would have. For example, a Chinese girl with an Australian accent (I’ve seen this) or a white dude with an Indian accent (I’ve never seen this…it would be…interesting…haha). ***
I really want to have a strong command of a second language but I don’t think I’ll have the time to learn one while I’m here in HK. I’ll learn basic words and phrases but I don’t expect to learn much more. I rather spend time getting the most out of work and having a good time (6 months isn’t that long…down to about 5 months now, actually). Anyways… I’ve lost touch with the Spanish I learned in HS and I have a sad to nonexistent command of Malayalam. This leads to the final transition of this note, which involves my latest poll (see the side bar on the right). Thanks for reading.
MT
p.s. Eat Your Serial…Kick Starter… check out the links…ask me questions…word
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