Recap of adventures of the first week

My internet connection at this place is not so good. Not enough bandwidth to use Skype. But I think it's very cheap to use Skype or Google Voice to call HK. So if you would like to call me, my number is listed on the left. Also, I have Monday off.

Just got back from running the local park. This area that I am in right now is actually really nice. There are a lot of families living here and really nice schools nearby. I think property here is really expensive. It would be great to find an affordable place to live here and be able to walk to work. I think this would be very difficult but I'll walk around the neighborhood tomorrow and see if I can find any real estate agencies.

Some tidbits about work. There is a tea lady who serves tea (and coffee) twice a day. She writes down what you want in the morning and afternoon and delivers it to your desk. While this is really awesome, this means, you  don't the coffee break excuse. There is self served coffee and tea throughout the day but do you really need more than 2 cups a day? If you put your lunch in the fridge, she will also microwave it for you. It is ready by lunch time (12:30pm) so there is no lining up for the microwave. It seems like everyone takes lunch at the same time.

I also made an executive decision today to unpack all my clothes. I stacked up my suitcases so that I'm not living out of them anymore. This gives me a lot more room and makes things feel more comfortable. I haven't bothered taking out little things like the clock but at least things aren't a mess anymore. I also bought a small pot today at IKEA so now I can cook.

Joanna came to visit me the first day I got here and left on Wednesday. We did some touristy stuff but it was not nearly enough time to do everything. I'll recap our Tuesday adventures. We went to get me registered for a HK ID in the morning. There was a huge line of people but fortunately, I registered online and that line was much shorter. I had to go through two other people after that to get all my stuff entered into the system. They didn't ask any questions so besides the wait, it wasn't a very painful process. I think the whole thing took about an hour. They issued me a temporary ID and I can pick up the real one in a couple of weeks.

After this, we took the MTR to Lantau Island and rode the cable car. It's a pretty long ride for about $20 per person (round trip). Definitely worth it. We got on the crystal car, which meant that the floor is transparent. There's really not much to see straight downwards so I probably wouldn't bother paying extra for it. There was a promotion where if we paid by Visa, we can get free admission to the special exhibits. I made good use of my Capital One card here. There were two special exhibits and we only went to one about Buddha. It was pretty cool but mostly for kids. Again, wouldn't recommend going unless you have a bunch of kids and want to kill time. You can also get a deal with some bus companies to take the cable car up and a bus back. But it's so far that I think the bus ride would be super long.

The ride was pretty long and we landed in a "village" with some shops. We went into a bubble tea place and got the best bubble tea ever! We were both shocked by the first gulp. It's a Taiwanese place and they have a lot of flavors. We just got the plain one and it was really good. Then we walked up to the big Buddha statue. That's actually the highlight of this place. Before the cable car, I think you would have to hike for a long time to see the Buddha. There are also a lot of hiking trails and camping sites around the area. There was also a sign for a hostel. There are actually a lot of places to go hiking, camping, and backpacking around HK. It would be cool to go backpacking around one of these days. I bet there are places easily accessible by public transportation. I should check this out. But it will be the rainy season soon so probably have to wait a while. I wonder who I can drag with me...

This whole adventure with the cable car took several hours. You can definitely walk around the area for the whole day. It's a very good day trip. On the way back, we went looking for a place that sold candy because Joanna wanted to get some chocolates for her cousins. We were going to meet up with her aunt and uncle for dinner. So we went into the mall at the MTR stop near the cable cars and found that it's an outlet mall! All the stores say outlet on them. So next time someone visits me, I would either send them on this day trip by themselves or go with them but stay at the outlets to check them out. I don't need to go up the cable car again. Maybe with my parents? It's not like they need me to deal with Chinese people though.

After this, we went to meet up with Joanna's aunt and uncle at a really fancy hotel. Her uncle had to go off to have dinner with his business partners so her aunt took us to dinner with some other people. Their driver drove us all to Mong Kok but we circled around for a long time trying to find the place that had been recommended to us. We finally gave up and went into some hot pot place. It was really good. We were stuffed. Apparently you can't drive across the border after a certain hour so we were left on our own after dinner. We went into a store to get me some conditioner and hangers. I managed to buy shampoo instead... We got back and I ironed all my work shirts. I have enough to last me more than two weeks.

Week One

It's Saturday and I'm not at work. I wonder how many other people are at work today. Just curious. I don't think I need to be in since I don't have any deadlines. Right now, I'm just helping other engineers with their projects. I guess I really want to be working on something more permanent and be more involved in a project. I feel like I have no clue what other people are working on. I don't think I've even met half the team yet. There is going to be a big office reorganization in June where they want to give each group their own space. Hopefully I'll get a good seat.

Monday is a holiday. I've been trying to get a list of holidays but I still don't have access to the intranet. I read about the holiday on the company newsletter. This gives me more time to hunt around for apartments. I'm going to see one today that is really far away. I'll see how that goes. Can't hurt to go take a look. Anyway, really need to get my life in order. I still have everything in suitcases and I feel like I can't function properly. More updates to come.

First Day of Work!

It was not that exciting. In the US offices, you're doing orientation related stuff most of the day. They get everything over with on the first day, which could be information overload. Here, the whole process seems to be slower. I met with HR and we went over my employment contract again. There were some forms for me to fill out. She took a while to explain the two different retirement pension plans that I can join. I swear that we spent a lot of time going over information that isn't very useful. I got handed off to one of the secretaries of my group and she gave me more forms. We didn't do anything about timesheets, marketing, using OvaNet, etc.

It's hard for me to think of my desk as really mine. I've had temporary desks for every internship that it's weird to think that I might actually be using this desk for a while and that I can store stuff here. I think part of it is because my desk was a huge mess when I got there. It had been used as storage for people's project papers. A couple of people came by to claim their stuff when I got there. In the US, IT would set up your computer and phone the day before you arrive so that you can get to work right away. But here, it takes a day for IT to make your account. Luckily, since I asked them to get me my old email back, I was able to sign in with my previous login. The strange thing is that I couldn't get to the intranet. I could see the network drives and go online though. I poke around the network drives and the papers around my desk the rest of the morning because my supervisor was at a meeting.

There are several people on vacation right now so I went out to lunch with 2 other people. We talked about finding housing in HK and they said that if I go further away from the city, I can find bigger places for my budget. They helped me clean out the papers on my desk and then I read some HK geotech guides for the rest of the day. Didn't seem like they were prepared for me coming. Hopefully they will have stuff for me to do tomorrow. Real job, not an intern anymore... So weird...

Adventures and Drama

Crazy adventures for my first full day in HK.. Joanna and I took the MTR to Hong Kong Island and took the Peak Tram to the Peak, the highest point on HK Island. We went early so there was no line for the tram. It was definitely an experience because the tram went up the hill at a 45 degree angle. But it's too pricey to go more than once so for my future guests, I'll just send them up while I take the cheap bus up. hahaha. We got tickets to the Sky Terrace viewing platform, which I'm not sure is worth the price. You can get the same views without going up that platform Anyway, we walked around the area and then came back down the hill. We visited the HK Gardens and found the Tea Museum but they weren't doing tea tasting (or maybe we were just dumb). We took the Star Ferry back to Kowloon and then a double decker bus to Mong Kok. And here's when the real adventure started.

I made an appointment the day before with a real estate agent. This guy is talkative and the first place he took me to was a place that was undergoing renovation. The place has 3 private suites that are one bedrooms. The two that faces the street are one bedrooms, reasonable size. The one in the back could actually be a two bedroom. He then told me prices that were really great deals for those sizes so I said I was interested in the big one in the back. And then as we were going to other places (which were studios instead of one bedrooms), the actual owner called back with a much higher price. We "negotiated" it down to $5,800, which is significantly higher than my highest price of $5K. 

He wanted to close the deal super fast and sat me down at a cafe while he tried to get the brother of the owner to come to sign off the paperwork. Joanna came back from her shopping spree and suggested that I ask my cousin who lives in Mong Kok what he thought. He said that the area is not so great and that it's too expensive. He came back from HK Island really fast and we convinced the agent and the owner to show him the place. He didn't think the agent was doing his job and was trying to rip me off so we ended up walking away from the whole deal. The place didn't have a 24hr security and the street was quiet at night. There wasn't an elevator either but the place was on the 2nd floor. Both we (the customers) and the owner decided after some talking that we were probably not the best match. The agent was really insistent and tried to get me to sign off on a price that the owner didn't agree to. It took us a while for us to shake him off. I think he also called me afterwards. 

Anyway, many lessons learned here. I seriously didn't know that you sign off on a place and move in right away. So I have plenty of time to look for a place to stay. And the most important thing is that I need to bargain harder. I also need to know the market more to figure out if a place is worth the rent. Really glad that I had two people with me who talked me to me about my options and got me away from that agent. I just need to be more careful next time. Good thing I didn't even bring any form of ID with me so he couldn't forge anything. After this we ate dinner and de-stressed.

Joanna and I went back to the Ladies Market and bargained for two suitcases for her. I think we got pretty good deals. I'm not sure I've managed to capture the entire drama here but this is the gist of it. Gotta get some sleep!! I think I only slept about 4 hours last night.

Arrived in Hong Kong!

I'm finally here! That was a truly long flight. I didn't sleep very much and ended up watching 2 movies and nearly the entire Season 7 of House. Good thing the entertainment selection was good. I think my inability to sleep is due to the anticipation of leaving family and friends behind to move to a new country on the other side of the world to start my first job.

Anyway, the flight was pretty smooth. There was no questioning at the border control. The guy just stamped my passport with lots of stamps, stuck another sticker on it, and basically took up another page of my passport. Seriously need to get more pages. He didn't ask a single question. I did a few more things at the airport before heading to the taxi stand and got a taxi to the YWCA. I think I blend in very nicely here. Everyone thinks I'm a local even though I was moving around 3 big pieces of luggage. They just thought that I'm coming back to HK after a long stay overseas. The taxi driver even asked if I remembered what the place (the YWCA) looked like. Good thing I checked out the area on Google street view. We exited the highway right by my workplace.

Here are some pictures (360 view) of the room that I'm staying in for the next month. It's got a kitchen area with all the basics:

Lots of light in this room. There are two ACs on top of the windows. It's a corner room on the 3rd floor. There is a double bed in the middle of the room with a coffe table to one side.

And a desk on the other side. The bathroom is through that door.

Also a TV. That's the front door.

This is a picture of my bed at home when I was packing.

Snowball!!

SFO Airport -- Hong Kong in 13 hours!

At the airport again.. Leaving really soon. It's so surreal. I can't believe this is happening. We got a lot of food today because my cousins, aunt, and grandparents came to see me off. We had a little farewell party. Ben texted me today to say that he wanted to visit before I left. He came by after work and stayed until we left for the airport. Just as we were leaving, Helia and Xiaoyu called to say that they were at the airport already. They had said that they wanted to see me off at the airport. I felt kind of bad because they had to wait half an hour at the airport for me to arrive. They event got me a little keychain leopard and a doggy travel pillow. I've always wanted one of these travel pillows. They're so sweet.

The security check in line was weird. One of the lines was really long and the other was really short. So I snuck over to the line that was really short. I don't know why other people didn't do this. Really boggles my mind. I guess I should practice being Chinese anyway. The check-in lady at the Cathay Pacific counter asked off-handedly if I had HK passport/ID. Let's see how long it takes people before they realize that I'm not from HK. haha. I think I'll put a 1HKD coin in a jar every time someone asks me where I'm from.

I don't have any real plans for the first day. Maybe I'll meet up with some relatives. We'll see how it goes. I should avoid sleeping. Joanna will join me at the YWCA for a few days. She's getting to HK Sunday night though.

Another adventure ahead. Stay tuned. I think I need to come up with new labels for this blog.

Leaving the US

This month has gone by fast! Leaving for the airport in a few hours. I'm pretty much all packed. I'm sure I'll remember something else. I feel like I haven't packed very practically this time around. Usually I would bring more things that I would need right away so that I'm not out hunting for essentials as soon as I get there. But I guess it's different this time since I'll be there for a longer term. Anyway, I'm sure I'll be fine.

I've updated the "Where is Lucy" column on the left with my Hong Kong cell phone number, in case anyone wants to call me. I'll probably be updating a lot once I get there. Hopefully the internet in my room is good. I think I will have plenty to do the first few days but I feel like I'm just waiting for the first day of work. That's why I decided to move to HK in the first place, for work. I'm not sure I know what to expect. Not sure I should be having expectations... Anyway, it'll be an interesting experience.