The early morning with the landlord
did not go
well, as I have scrimped and saved just to get Two Months Rent.
Remember
Joe and I paid 25,000 HK for only TWO
MONTHS in our first Chamma Tau
apartment, and lost our last month deposit when there was the sudden
return of Joe to Canada
after failing at 50 job interviews
to come up with a corporate computer job.
I
was looking at the apartment, rather proud that
I could bounce back with two months
rent, and having suffered a month in a grungy cramped Nathan Road
place - the
same price as my beautiful homes in
Montreal, and Shenzhen, and saw the garden was pretty, trees on one
side, a ten minute
walk from the ferry boat, though not
one speck of furniture, and the smallest place I would ever have rented
- a one
bedroom - without a spare room to
rent out in case of emergency.
Then the husband and wife had
a slight argument.
They were arguing about what
to charge me.
The
first price quoted more than tripled with government
taxes tacked on to a now THREE
MONTHS rent, and I was also fibbed to about the last month of rent,
which was now not to be
returned during the last month - at
the end of the last month!!!
Of
course, this is all to make interest off the
bank deposits, a business technique
carried out en masse, and I have never encountered this anywhere else in
the world.
Not in England, America, Canada,
or China.
What this means is that this
place will now sit
empty for a few months, as Christmas and Spring Holiday are coming up soon.
There
was no stove, no bath-tub, and no washer-dryer
outlets, or hook-ups, so it is not
really suitable for themore rarified taste of The Corporates, and I too
do like not to
have to walk along the local alleys
with bundles of bedsheets in my arms.
Later
at the hotel, while grumping
about this. I was surprised at all
the backpackers and young travellers who do not care for Hong Kong one
bit, based on prices,
and more suprisingly, the claims there is little to do here.
************************
I
would like to take up new hobbies such as scuba diving or
even learning how to fly an
airplane, and thanks to the Internet, I have found it is quite cheap to
study things in
other parts of Asia...even computer
courses such as learning how to make children's cartoons.
I have found the battery is kaput
on the second hand computer
which means no Starbucking with this laptop till I find out what a computer battery costs.
It sounds terribly expensive:
computer battery.
*****************************************
With what was left out of my
money and my mind, I went out
with Laura, my good friend here.
Her fatigue has turned slightly
with thetaking of selenium,
and her blood tests back from her doctor show nothing seriously wrong.
She
came gliding towards me as I sat watching the ferries coming
in and out from Chamma Tau, as place
that increasingly is unhappy as I am now about to lose the $2000.00 USA
in furniture
my friend the Other Landlady, not my
own, gave to me.
Still no Internet.
We
went by tram to Causeway Bay and were delighted by the great
free-for-all on the sidewalks, with
many locals selling jewellery and a second-hand clothes and even used
Christmas decorations.
This place is called Victoria Park
and there are even portrait artists, some of them passable, with
rock-bottomprices; these
talents work from photographs as
well, and I think these hand-created items make a better gift than
something plastic and
packaged.
The
hotel was calming and luxurious and they are getting quite
friendly though I don't think they
read my website, with the favourable review I wrote of this place.
We
started with British tea, which I usually avoid in favour
of coffee, because I think tea goes
down better with all the sugar we were about to consume: mango
cheescake, whipped
cream scones, raspberry jam, whipped
butter, mango puddings, large flawless strawberries with even more
whipped cream.
Laura
did a hilarious and awkward interview with me on the
subject of parent-child
relationships - this is part of an academic project, and goes to show
what little academics know about
some things.
Trying
to get a good interview that lasts ninety minutes as
a truly professional skill, and the subject is not paid or reqwarded at all!
Her
questions were too large or too personal.
People
that answer intreviewers on tv are motivated by
career publicity, or community good will.
We
switched around, and I did the interview with her.
This
went better, though it was still liking pulling teeth,
bit by bit, and the time did not fill up quickly enough.
Ths
pianist started playing, and of course, he played Happy
Birthday to Laura.
She
was happy though mildly embarrassed, and I said,
Don"t worry, we are in Hong Kong, no one will ever notice.
And
they didn't.
******************************************
We
went home later again by tram, and I went back to the cramped
quarters that will make me ill again, unless I get the money to get out of them;
Laura
has offered to help and told me she would have given
me one of her rental apartments but
her sister arrived from England, and when she goes back there may be an
opening there.
