Thursday April 13th, 2006

Thursday, April 13^th.

I keep imagining myself doing different things. Taking pictures, describing the things I see, giving everyone a taste of what it’s like to live here. Yet when I sit down to write I have trouble thinking of what to say. The words are there when I’m riding on the shuttle, or gazing out the window, it’s just hard to find them while sitting at my computer.

Okay, quit complaining and just write!

Going to the bank today was odd. To begin with, it wasn’t on my “plan” for today. I intended to stay home all day long and avoid the stress of the outside world, but then (fortunately) it occurred to me that tomorrow is Good Friday which here means that the banks are closed. So reluctantly I got ready and boarded the shuttle a little before 4 PM. The traffic was relatively light. Each time I ride the bus I see something new. I puzzle over the languages being spoken all around me. Am I hearing Cantonese? Tagalog? Spanglish? I know when I’m hearing Spanglish, but don’t know the rest of it at all. I could be hearing completely different languages and I would have no idea. Its all very musical sounding, and utterly meaningless to me.

Once inside the bank I spent several minutes deciding which line I should get in. I started looking at the different deposit/withdrawal slips and there actually was a slip entitled “foreign currency withdrawal”! What the heck, I thought, that sure sounds like what I want so I took one and got in line. I filled it out, but I still had misgivings. Would they want Lee’s signature too? Would they want to see a copy of his HK id card? Would they want my blood type? A shot of my retina? What? Turns out they didn’t want anything except the slip. They didn’t even ask for MY id. I don’t get it. Why are they so paranoid about giving us a credit card, yet they gladly gave me $1,000 US without blinking an eye.

Re, the credit card. You know how in the US you get dozens of cc offers in the mail all the time? How everyone and their mother are just dieing to give you another credit card? Well, not so here. Lee has been trying for the past month to convince our bank to give us a credit card. We don’t want to use our US credit cards here, because there is a foreign exchange service charge of 3% on each transaction. In order to get a credit card in HK Lee needs a letter of proof of employment (check), and proof of 3 months paychecks, IN HONG KONG. It doesn’t matter that he’s worked for 3M for over 20 years. It doesn’t matter that we have credit cards in the US with ungodly credit limits, that we never carry a balance, that if they would look at our credit rating in the US they would find that it’s exemplary. Nope, they want 3 months paychecks in HK and we can’t find any way around it. Its driving Lee crazy, but going up the chain of command at the bank hasn’t done any good. We’re stuck using ATM cards and cash for 2 more months.

I know one way that I’m getting acclimatized to HK. It was “cooler” today – the high was in the low 70’s instead of the mid-80’s, so when I went to the bank I took a sweater with me! It was cloudy and that just made it seem chilly.

I hope the sun is shining in Japan. I think HK gets lots of sunshine in the fall and winter, but it rains a lot in the spring and summer, and the island gets draped in clouds. I’m going to end up needing one of those light boxes myself if it keeps up like this for very long.

I got lots and lots of book boxes unpacked today, and CD’s and cookbooks. I have 6 boxes left to go, plus a box full of piano music that I’m not sure what to do with yet.

Now today I'm going to first take a walk up to the Peak for exercise

and then I'll unpack the rest of the books, and pack for Japan. We

leave early tomorrow (Saturday) morning.