…If you don’t stop and look around every once in a while you could miss it…”
A week is a long time in showbiz and in Hong Kong. Since we last spoke I have discovered that my wife really does know her onions and her estate agent chum really did sort us out. First thing the day after we landed it was decided that we should go house hunting. We called our estate agent mate, and I’m a big fan of esate agents, who duly arranged a viewing of a days worth of properties. My wife had selected an area that we should look around and we did all day. When you live in Hong Kong then you have to go small and small it freakin well is. It’s no exaggeration to say that for HK$ 15,000 a month (£1,000 or $2,000) you get a small ‘living’ room complete with offshoots consiting of a bedroom and a bathroom and a kitchen – a kitchen that consists of one electric cooking ring, a sink and a tap. Most pads we saw pen and inked and vistas out over car parks and/or next doors washing. One even had a crushed cockroach on the floor. Lovely stuff. We were looking at bargain basement properties that made the Gaza Strip seem glamorous. Flat after flat and lift after lift to squat after squat and we were desperate and heartbroken.
All we’d sacrificed back in London and our reward was the honour of living in a dump with no visa and so you can understand why we were rapidly running out of hope. We persevered and we would have to up our budget if were to at least get somewhere half decent and so we kept on keeping on with our ever patient and polite estate agent who then had some keys rushed to him. Golden keys they must have been because upping by just a few more thousand made a world of difference and we were shown apartments that were clean and modern and big. One had two bedrooms, a nice big bathroom and wooden floors and huge windows looking out over the city rather than some peasants dirty washing. We saw a few more before we set our heart on one and, cutting a long story short, we’ve got it. Great area with loads of restaurants and also very close to work. I also got a call the same day to tell me my visa had been approved. Happy days at long last.