On Wednesday, we took the ferry from Lantau Island to Hong Kong Island to area known as Central. It is literally the hub of everything and is crowded with people, taxis, buses, etc... Once you walk off the ferry terminal, you walk into the biggest mall I've ever seen. It's four floors of everything. The mall is connected to many other buildings by elevated, covered walkways. We met our relocation specialist person, Cheryl, who walked us to immigration to apply for ID cards. That was fascinating. The officials were incredibly nice, helped with the forms, worked quickly, and we were done in 45 minutes. One official barked a question at Paul and he didn't understand her, so he just stared at her trying to figure out her question. She waited for a second or two, asked again and then came around the desk saying,"I need the mama!" I jumped up thinking terrible thoughts and walked around the corner to see Paul sitting bug-eyed. She asked where he went to school and I had to ask her to repeat it, but I finally caught it and told her homeschool. She asked again. I repeated and she said,"Homeschool? In Hong Kong?". I smiled and said yes, she just shrugged and took his picture and moved on. Whew...International incident averted!
From immigration we traveled to the bank to start a Hong Kong bank account. She chose CitiBank for us and they were also very quick, immensely kind and patient and we were done in about an hour there.
We walked to a small cafe inside The Hong Kong Maritime Museum which was staffed by mostly mentally challenged young adults. They were lovely and very good at their jobs and our food was quite good. This cafe is a part of a non-profit that trains and employs the mentally challenged.
Cheryl took us then to the FedEx office to meet the staff and to work through Steve's paperwork. Then it was a ferry ride back to Discovery Bay where Steve took the kids back to the hotel and Cheryl and I were off to meet a real estate agent, Gary, and look for apartments. Gary is Chinese and good at his job. He had lined up about 10 places for me to see plus a golf cart to take us around.
This was the day I've been waiting for! Finally time to see in real life some actual Hong Kong apartments!! Gary took us to see so many, but the very first one I was able to see us living there. There were four actual bedrooms and the tiny room set aside for the maid. This one is a townhouse and has the tiniest backyard, two terraces, a nice large kitchen and a large rooms for the living room and dining room. The other bedrooms are small but manageable.
The second apartment is a third floor condo with a nice large living room, dining room off a good sized kitchen, utility and maids rooms, plus a full bath on the main floor. Up the stairs is the master bedroom and two smaller bedrooms, plus two baths. Then built later is a third floor loft area!! The loft itself is big and nice with sloping ceiling over half of it. BUT the best part of this one is the second loft. It is an area with a five foot ceiling just up three steps from the first loft. It is oddly shaped and right now full of empty storage cabinets, but it is a dream room for a small girl! Plenty of room for a bed, toys, and everything else she has, but it has the feel of a attic hideaway. This one also has four terraces...one large one and three smaller ones off the bedrooms.
The third apartment is on the 7th floor of a high rise complex. Very nice apartment, five separate bedrooms, though one is very tiny indeed, two baths and a huge open living room, dining room kitchen combo. It is nicely renovated and really lovely. It has no outdoor space at all and no utility space either. BUT, it is really really well done and we could live there.
Once I finished looking at them all, I rated them and Gary made arrangements for us to return to the top five today with Steve. Poor Steve was back at the hotel terrified I wouldn't find anything for us...he was just sure I would return saying that I was going back to the U.S.! But, today Steve and I returned it the best ones, talked finances with Gary and he will make offers on the three I listed above and we will see....
Please say a prayer that we get the best apartment for us. There are pros and cons to each one, but I am confident it will work out for us as it is supposed to. My hearts desire is for Lizzy to have that attic loft room. She has been saying she really wanted to live in the tiny maids room, but the rooms are just very tiny and she would soon be very frustrated with her lack of space.
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