I'm Still Here!

Goodness what a week! I love my job, but the learning curve is huge. Having over 1000 children at the school multiplies everything at the start of the year and adding construction to the mix isn't helping much. The first big day is tomorrow. We'll see! In the meantime, here are some pictures of the neighborhood around the flat. (Sorry, Torrie...)

This is acutally Peel Street - my street :) I live in the building about half way up in this photo - just above the store with all the bright clutter on the roof. Go through the marble archway, drop your keys and least twice, and you're home. I live on the fourth floor, but around the back, which is good. Across the road, which you can't see, are several very popular pubs, which make the evenings somewhat noisy if you live at the front. I never hear them.

This is the view out my bedroom window. There's a park down there. On Sundays, people play chess, and the kids swing - lots of picnics. Hong Kong is full of these little parks, "rest" places, and amazingly trees. I have yet to find a part of the city that isn't green and beautiful....well, the MTR stations, but they're underground. Aberdeen, where the school is located, is quite industrial, but the harbor is there, and there are some beautiful beaches.

Staunton Rd., which runs perpendicuar to Peel. I walk down this one every morning to get to the escalator to get to the bus to go through the tunnel to go to work. Staunton is one of about 5 or 6 streets that make up the Mid-Levels and Soho. Restaurants, pubs, small shops, and

apartments. A good mix of ex-pats and locals live here since it's close to Central (where lots of business people work or shop). Soho and the Mid-Levels are spread out all along the escalator that runs from Queen's Road up to Caine Road. The area is really handy to most everyplace since there's a major bus exchange and MTR station at the bottom of the escalator.

So, there you are. Now you know where I am. :) Next time, the school...assuming we all survive the next couple of days...

Home Sweet Home

This is L'Hotel at Causeway Bay. The school has generously allowed us two weeks here at no cost as we run frantically about the city trying to find flats. You think I'm kidding, don't you? I'm not - real estate here is insane! Prices are high and flats in good areas for "reasonable" amounts of money are gone almost before they are available. This has been a great place to stay, but I'm really tired of living out of my suitcases.

This is the MTR station at Tin Hau. It's across the road from L'Hotel, it's the place I start pretty much any journey within the city. It's illegal to take pictures inside the station, but if you can imagine "public restroom meets shopping mall," you've pretty much got the decor. Each station is a different colour. Tin Hau is orange, Causeway Bay is purple, etc. Colours don't repeat on the same line, so as you can imagine, some of them are quite...bright...shall we say? They are VERY clean and continually maintained. I do most of my banking down there. I can also recharge my Octopus and buy Mrs. Field's cookies. The ladies you can see in the photo are two of the seemingly millions of folks who stand on streets and pass out flyers. They are literally everywhere.

Ok, now for the cool stuff. This is the escalator to the Mid-Levels where I live. Hong Kong is set on a series of steep hills and walking up and down them is a pain (literally - trust me, I know). This escalator runs from Central to the Mid-Levels - about 8 city blocks straight up. It goes down until 10 in the morning for commuters and then up for the rest of the day. You can see the stairs on the right you must use to travel in the other direction. The whole thing is outside with only a small covering. Everything in Hong Kong is outside....everything. It's fun, but really toasty.

Here's the flat. This is the living room. (It's a fan.) The windows look down on the park. Floor is wood. The other photo is me sitting on the bed taking a picture of the kitchen. Fridge and washing machine are in the cabinets. Pretty cool, really. I also have a television and microwave.

So that's my flat. There's two flats per floor in this building - haven't met the neighbors yet, but I'm sure I will. Mr. Lee, the little man who sits at the door and cares for the maintenance, has told me where to put my rubbish, but since he told me in Cantonese, it's anyone's best guess. I find myself smiling and nodding a lot. Next post - some pictures of the outside of the building and the neighborhood - the flat with my stuff in it - AND, we're going siteseeing on the 12th.

It's great here, my friends. I'm glad you're sharing it with me.

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...

CHINA! I feel rather like the post office - neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor hail, nor Narita - can keep me from my appointed rounds. Getting through the airport in Japan was the biggest challenge of the whole trip! The luggage arrived without difficulty, and I literally walked through immigration and customs stopping only long enough for the immigration official to chop a stamp on my visa.

So far, Hong Kong is everything I thought it would be and more. It's hot. (I believe it may be possible to get dehydrated by THINKING about going outside.) It's busy. It's also really beautiful. I got in about midnight last night and took the airport shuttle to the hotel. The lights on the harbour are incredible...

This morning was spent getting my ID card from Immigration. It was an unbelieveably positive experience. The people in the office were polite, efficient and very helpful. (There's something to be said for an immigration official in uniform with a "Hello Kitty" calendar on her desk.) The entire process took less than an hour, and there were 10 of us. Then we went to the bank and opened accounts...also lovely. The young man who opened my account now has a new piece of English slang - he was pleased to discover that I was "low maintenance" and that I was sure he "had it covered." (My first contributions to the destruction of Chinese culture. :)

I have also survived my first encounters with the MTR (mass transit railway). I will get lost eventually, I'm sure, but not so far. I love my Octopus card. It does everything but my laundry, and we're working on that.

The pictures on this post are of the view outside my hotel window. It's a residential area under construction. My favourite thing so far? People hang their laundry out their windows. It's really rather colourful, and the girl across the way on the 21st floor has some really cute skirts...