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.