New Apartment

Well, we've been in our new apartment for about 2 weeks now.  We're mostly settled in, but things are still a bit bare, as we haven't got any decoration or personal touch on any of it yet. 

The day of our move was a bit epic.  We'd been living in a nearby hotel for about a month, and we were scheduled to leave on the 28th, and had absolutely no interest in extending our stay.  We decided we were out that day come hell or high water.  Well, we got both and managed to move anyway.  That day was the day of our first real typhoon experience!  It was a signal 8, which means it's not the worst we could get, but still bad enough.  The actual storm centre passed about 350 km away, but that was close enough to cause some real havoc.  A signal 8 is enough to essentially shut Hong Kong down, so Craig had the day off work.  I'm quite sure the hotel staff thought we were crazy going outside in that weather, but there we go.  It could have been a lot worse.  Sure, when we got to our apartment building to find the lobby doors taped as a precaution against breaking glass, and when we read the warnings about exploding windows, we were a little put off, but we weren't on the exposed side thank goodness!

Here's some photos of the empty apartment pre furniture arrival and building

 Our bedroom, now occupied by a bed and wardrobe.

 Spare room, now occupied by spare bed/daybed and a desk.

 Living room from the front door, now occupied by couch, tv stand/shelves, chests of drawers, coffee table and hopefully soon a dining table.

 Bathroom, complete with the luxury of a real bath.  I had completely expected to have a Chinese style bathroom with shower, toilet and basin all in one tiny space.  It's a huge luxury to be able to have all this.

Kitchen, with a full gas cooktop, large fridge (behind the door), plenty of cupboards and a washing machine as well.  Again, this is much much more than what I was expecting.

Overall, we're really lucky to be able to have a place like this.  There are some definite advantages to living in an area that most Hong Kongers think is hopelessly out of the way, and being able to afford a place like this is one of them.  There's also a lot more space and green areas in this end of the New Territories, yet we are right on the very efficient transit system, and at most it will take me an hour to get to work.  Not too bad at all.