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After almost 25 years living in Europe, we recently made the jump to Asia and have set up our homestead in Hong Kong. This is the first of a 3-part series on our initial reflections on Hong Kong. 

Nothing like travelling business class to take away the sting of a 16-hour flight from New York to Hong Kong. Hunter, Giada and I each had our only little cubbyholes to enjoy movies, snacks, reading and snoozing – I swear it was more comfortable than many hotels I’ve stayed at over the years! Kids were great, slept just a tiny bit, but we arrived at nighttime in Hong Kong so they just crashed and seemed to adapt pretty well right away to the time change.

Andrew had returned to Italy a week earlier to get the dog prepped for her 20-hour-in-a-crate journey from Rome to Hong Kong. All went without a hitch and Andrew got Aisha to her doggie country club, complete with her own pool and open gardens to frolic in with the other dogs. Our serviced apartment doesn’t accept pets, so until we find a home, she’s boarded. We’ve visited her a few times and I’m not quite sure if she’s going to want to come home with us.

So, the house hunting is what has us most pre-occupied in the week we’ve been here so far. Of course Andrew is working full time, so I’m spending most days pounding the pavement while the kids are at summer camp. There is such an amazing array of apt/ house styles to accommodate a completely diverse array of tastes and needs. The rents are double/ triple what we’re used to paying, but we already got our head around that one before we arrived. The biggest discovery is that living in the center of the city with the convenient commute for Andrew and proximity to nightlife will get us about half as much home for the same price, than if we move out in the suburbs.

After much deliberation about clean breathe-able air, shorter school commute for the kids, romping space for the dog, area for a vegetable garden, etc. – it’s looking like we’re going to go with the burbs. We’ve narrowed it down to Clear Water Bay or Sai Kung areas, but accessible to public transportation but with decidedly less pollution, smog, congestion than the city center options. We’re seeing a dozen or so more houses this weekend and hope to be close to narrowing in on one next week.

Apparently it’s very common here to get a live-in “helper”; a full-time maid/ child carer that essentially does everything for you around the house.  We initially weren’t sure about this because it’s extravagant, we don’t need it. But all of the houses seem to have the helper room built in, and we’ve been told that it’s socially unacceptable NOT to get a helper because it helps the local economy and the whole social system is built around it. Or something like that.  Anyway,  it would be nice to be spontaneous about going out or even travelling on our own, so after a few months of setting things up we think we’re going to do our bit to support the economy and give it a shot. Astounding, however, what some deem “live-able quarters” for these – mostly Pilipino – ladies who become part of expat families.  Most of the rooms barely have enough space for a small bed, they often have no windows, and some you can’t even stand up fully in. Essentially, closet space – and a small closet at that. We saw a few where the helper room was actually an un-air conditioned tiny structure up on the roof of the house. You gotta be kidding me! Needless to say, we’ve ruled out some perfectly lovely houses because of such conditions.

There also are often no ovens, since the locals tend to steam or fry everything, there’s no need. I would miss my baking, so this will need to be rectified!

Tomorrow we pick Hunter up at his sleep-away camp after he’s been gone for a week. It seems like a really cool academic prep/ building young leaders/ reinforcing self-confidence camp that we hope will prepare him for the challenges of the Asian school system. We haven’t heard from him once (the kids had a ½ hour window every night where they can call their parents but no peep from Hunter) so we checked in with the counselors to see if everything was ok. Here’s what we got:

Hunter displays excellent participation in all activities including team participation and academics. This is shown by frequently providing input towards the team, and helping them complete the activities. In academics, his reading speed has increased exponentially; his determination drove his desire to increase his speed. The Team Leaders also noticed the detail he puts into his playbook. The information provided is copied down concisely and thoroughly by him. He also, most notably, enjoys dancing and playing games with others during breaks and afternoon activities.

Okay, I’ll take that.  It’s been so quiet around here without him; we can’t wait to pick him up for camp “graduation” tomorrow!

Giada has been on a day-camp Nature Explorer program, where they go out and observe the “pink dolphins” in the wild, go kayaking, swimming, do arts and crafts, and play. Giada is still trying to get acclimated to the heat in Hong Kong so has had some challenges adjusting. The camp is also mostly boys who misbehave all the time and have to have constant times out (according to Giada, of course). But she met a nice local Hong Kong friend – Vivian –who she likes a lot, so they seem to be making the most out of it.

Today Giada has her first play date, with a family I met online from the school network (which doesn’t start until Sept 9^th). They live out in the Sai Kung area, where we’re considering living. So after today’s house-hunting session, we’ll be whisked away for a local BBQ, swimming, and trampolining with some a couple kids.  The husband is Chinese and the wife Canadian, the kids both born in Hong Kong. Kids will be going to the same school as ours, Kellett international, so it’ll be nice to get a head start on the socializing.

Other random observations:

–       there is wifi on the entire subway system here!!  Called the “MTR”, you can get connection literally everywhere, and people are constantly connected.

–       I’ve been exploring that various options to have organic veggies delivered. The first one came with a 50% discount, which was only slightly painful but the food was delish. The next provider I tried out I paid full price and I won’t even say how much I ended up paying for 1 papaya. I need to start growing our own food quickly!

–       Buildings are so very vertical here, everything is built straight up. So, whereas we’re used to having store-fronts to shop in; here there is an office-style looking building and on each floor would be several businesses, restaurants, schools, etc.  They’ve just run out of ground space.

–       We have survived our first level 3 typhoon warning, which apparently is quite common and in fact no big deal. For some reason the levels go from 3 and then skip to 8, which is quite dangerous and can go all the way up to 10 (which only happens once every few years). For now, we’ve just mostly seen a whole lot of rain.

–        The kids will be learning Mandarin in school but the local language is Cantonese. So we’re still trying to get our heads around how to manage all that; which do we learn and how much of each? We just found out that to say “I am a vegetarian” in Cantonese you say “I eat like Buddha”. LOVE that!

First dinner in Hong Kong, of pizza and pasta. Um…. do they do “to go” bags here?

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