Thursday, December 25, 2008

Fast Forward 2 months later... We're in HK!

This will hopefully be the beginning of my Hong Kong adventure blogs. Ben and I have safely gotten to HK and settled into our first week here. Here's a short synopsis so far...

Dec 19 - Landed in HK after 22 hours of transit, paying $175 in excess luggage and overweight fees, and an unexpected stop in Taipei for refueling. We had way too much stuff with us! Luckily, picking up the boys at cargo was relatively trouble free. We lugged our 6 luggages and the 2 kittie carriers and hopped on 2 cabs to get to our temporary serviced apartment in Soho.

Dec 20 - With the day and nights still jumbled in our heads, we ended up with 6 hour naps in the afternoon into the day and catching really late dinners for the last two days. We did manage to check out some apartments and have found one we liked a lot. Luckily for us, rent prices have come down a lot so we are hoping to find a pretty nice place :-). We've been alternating between nicer restaurants in Soho and holes in the wall noodle places. We finally made it to Lan Kwai Fong (LKF) for a dinner but not ready for drinks yet. Luckily we bumped into a giant dreidel who told us about the Chanukah festivities the following day. It'll be nice to have Ben join in a Jewish festivity here in HK!



Giant dreidel
This is the giant dreidel and Ben
Lan Kwai Fong
This is a pic of LKF - expat party central


Dec 21 - We decided to trek to Wanchai and get some much needed outlet converters since none of our appliances would plug in. We got converters and a small transformer for some electronics - laptop, electric toothbrush, camera charger, phone charger, etc. (you get the drift... ^_^). And then we joined my boss and what seemed like all the Jews in HK for the candle lighting ceremony right outside the Bank of China building. Quite an amazing and contrasting sight!
Menorah lighting in front of Bank of China building
Menorah lighting in front of Bank of China building


Our Soho service apartment
Pic of our bed that comes off of the ceiling ^_^ right on top of our dining table.

Dec 22 - Dec 24 - My first three days of work. I am getting used to my commute to work which is composed of several escalator rides down to the IFC building then a brisk walk down to the ferry pier and a 12 minute ferry ride to the mainland side. I'm loving the ferry ride! I get to have my morning breakfast and read the paper. Star TV is then less than 5 minutes walk from the pier. On my rides back,I get to enjoy the beautiful evening skyline of Hong Kong which are extra adorned for Christmas and New Year. Ben continued to apartment hunt and has found a couple of others that sound great so I got to take a look at them after work on my slightly shorter day on Christmas Eve.

Dec 25 - It's been weird spending Christmas outside of the U.S. I think today more than any other day so far I've missed not being in the U.S. and being close to family and friends. We enjoyed a nice American dinner at the Flying Pan and caught a "Tale of Despereaux" at the Pacific Place - this extremely ex-pat and high end mall, and then wrapped up the day with some Rioja wine from Spain and cheese. Merry Christmas Everyone!!! Really miss everyone!!!
View of Kowloon from the ferry on my way to work
View of Kowloon from the ferry on my way home from work

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Happy holidays!

The giant dredel(sp?) is awesome. Looking forward to visiting, post more please. =)

(PS: I can't believe you got the video upload to work, it's by far the least reliable feature...)

Amy said...

It took over 15 minutes each to post but it went through ^_^. I was impressed! ^_^

Patty B. said...

Happy Holidays, Miss Amy!

Linked to this blog from your Facebook status - this is awesome! I've bookmarked your blog so I can keep up with your new HK adventures :)

Patty B. said...

Happy Holidays, Miss Amy!

I linked over to this blog from your Facebook status. :) This is too cool! Please keep posting, so that myself (and the rest of us FAN folks) can keep up with your HK adventures.