We sure saw a lot of apartments yesterday. We looked primarily in Mid-levels and over on the ocean side of the island - Repulse Bay, Deep Water Bay, South Bay. We saw a lot of small, crappy apartments that just wouldn’t do for us, but we also saw several really nice ones. We have two definite maybes on our list now that we want to go back and look at again today. Our guide or whatever she is, is funny and nice. Her English name is Clara. She’s around 38 years old, but she looks maybe 25. She told us about her sisters (she has 4, plus a brother that lives in China), her 4 year old nephew (a bad boy that doesn’t listen, this is said with a wide smile), and her 77 year old parents that she adores.
The apartment we liked in mid-levels was nicely renovated. It has a decent balcony and I think a pretty good view of Causeway Bay and Central. Lee says there was another building blocking part of the view, but I don’t remember. The back side of the apartment faces the Peaks - lots of greenery, which is a good thing in Mid-levels. Mid-levels is very citified, VERY hilly (think San Francisco on speed). The streets are like a bowl of spaggetti - really, I mean that literally! I don’t see how you would ever figure out how to get somewhere, but I’m sure I will. Commuting from Mid-levels would be very, very easy for Lee, and shopping and getting places would also be easy for me. The botanical gardens and hiking trails are very close by. The down-side is the pollution and congestion. I think I would get used to it eventually, but it would be a big adjustment at first.
The other place we really liked was in a complex called Parkview. In some ways its our (well my anyway) first choice at this point, although I won’t really know that until we go back again and look a second time. Again the apartment was roomy, nicely renovated. There’s a balcony, and the views were spectacular. Its on top of a mountain close to the ocean side of the island. You could see most of Hong Kong from the windows. The complex its in is huge - 16 towers. It would be easy to get lost in it at first. The facility is really nice (this is the one Lee compared to the Love Boat). There are 3 swimming pools - two outdoor and one indoor, a big exercise / fitness center and its right next to the mountain hiking trails. The downside is the commuting for Lee would be harder - he’d have to take the complex’s shuttle bus into Central, or a taxi. it’s a steep walk down the hill to get to the public transportation. The other problem is that it may very well be out of our price range. Clara is supposed to negotiate the price for us. It seems like everything here is negotiable, and you have to know how to do that.
I’m anxious to go back and take a second look today. Its interesting doing this again after having done it in Austin so recently. I know that first impressions can be deceiving, and that we will notice things about the apartments that we didn’t notice the first time around. I’m sure my next letter will include a change in perspective…. There are also some additional apartments on our list for today, and I bet that Clara will have some other things to show us, now that she’s spent the day with us and knows what our tastes are like. She said she mostly works with expats, so our dismay over the lack of closet space in some of the apartments was probably nothing new to her.
Oh, another interesting thing. All of the apartments have maid’s quarters off the kitchen. We’ll get housekeepers to come in and clean, but no live-in maid and so we looked at this space as a great storage area. Some of them were large enough that Lee thinks he could bring some of his workshop stuff. That’s a big deal for him. He needs to be able to putter around, fix things, make things, etc. I think he would be sad if he couldn’t do that occasionally.
Love, Lynn.
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