Bonkers second law of compromise - apartment living

If you think that transplanting your quarter acre block home and garden lifestyle to Hong Kong is easy, think again. In Hong Kong apartments are called houses and they exist only in high rise complexes with back yards known as balconies and club houses. Apartments are hideously expensive, small and bedroom sizes are a joke. Some places have maids rooms too. I could not actually lie down in the space allowed for the maid, consequently it is a good idea to check the height of your domestic helper before moving in to save on any embarrassment.

Some people able to live outside the city area or on the peak in free standing houses, but there are so few and these make up a tiny fraction of total housing in HK.

Time and time again you will be staggered by the high price and low quality housing options available.

The flip side of course is shown above, a fully open sea view, from a high floor apartment with no neighbours peering in. If you can do it, afford the premium price, it's definately worth the extra bucks. The harbour is so busy that the view is never completely the same, with all kinds of ships cruisers, barges, marine police, sampans, junks and funny little deep hulled bucket like ships that refuel the container vessels in the middle of the harbour.

For those living on the lower floors with the street noise, a clear view of the chinese neighbours grand father roaming around in his white singlet and shorts all day, the bonkers factor can get a little extreme.

Bonkers first law of compromise - air quality

Air quality is the hottest topic after money, property, cars, shoes and handbags and whatever else you can do with money.

There's a couple of ways you can look at this image of Hong Kong. One as a photo of the Star ferry crossing from Central to TsimTsa Tsui in the hazy dusk, full of punters reflecting as the sun sets on another brilliant day of commerce in the big little city. The other way to look at this is as a ferry floats on the water pushing its way through the thick poluted haze of noxious 'god-knows-what' blowing over from mainland China. Better keep the kids indoors and put on the gas mask on cause it can't be doing you any good.

In hong Kong the Bonkers first law of compromise is, you can whinge about the air quality but that polution aint going away in a hurry, so get used to it. You can get lucky and it will rain, or a good stiff southerly breeze blow the muck back into China.

Loads of people are lobbying the Government to put pressure on China to clean up and the Pearl River Delta officals are saying they will clean up. Let's hope this happens sooner rather than later.

Some expats have actually gone bonkers over the air polution and packed up their kit and move to somewhere else, maybe to Singapore, where they find out later that Indonesia blocks their sky view while they burn forest for 2-3 months of the year.

I like this photo which was taken from another ferry crossing in the opposite direction to this ferry.

Bonkers

Hong Kong's gives it's first impression as the tip of Asian economic wave, a relentless economic momentem being driven from it's mother country mainland China. Because of its British colonial history, system of law and english based business culture, the finance and trading industries of the globe take comfort in the ability to come, live and prosper in what is is little island and peninsula hanging off the end of China.

This blog is not about doing business in Hong Kong it's about living in Hong Kong with it's freedoms, fun and frustrations.