Tuesday, October 27, 2009

A Month In Hong Kong

It's approaching my first month here in Hong Kong (HKG). I am not totally familiar as yet but today I am going to share a bit of the place where I am currently staying, my client's office and perhaps some tips if you are visiting HKG anytime soon.



Hong Kong is split into 3 areas; New Territories, Kowloon & Hong Kong Island. The name of the place that I am staying is Tung Chung which falls under the area of New Territories. So I will not indulge further on other areas as I am not that familiar as yet. Tung Chung is the city that is the nearest to HKG International Airport.

From the airport, one can take buses numbering S1 or S56 to get to Tung Chung MTR station. The cost is HKD3.50 which is approximately RM1.30 if I were to treat the rate of Ringgit half of the HKG Dollar. Tung Chung will be the last station on the most West side of the line. The subway services here are pretty easy, not as complicated as I first thought when I saw the MTR mapping.




Most of the time when I mentioned the name of the place, many of my friends would not know where is it. Therefore for easier understanding, normally I will tell them that I am one station away from Disneyland station which Sunny Bay.

So for the past 3 weeks or so, I only had the privilege to loiter around this small airport city. It took me approximately close to 40 minutes HKD18 to get to Central Hong Kong from Tung Chung plus my client's office is in fact in the HKIA itself so I need not travel that much actually.




Tung Chung from my observation is like Mon't Kiara or Bangsar in Malaysia because I can see many expats here, and most of the airlines stewardesses, stewards & pilots will stay around this area. There is nothing much to shout about here and the main attraction here would be the Ngong Ping 360, where there is this cable car bring you up a hill to see the big Buddha & Po Lin Monastery.

And for shopping, I had earlier mentioned about Citygate Outlets where it housed all the factory and warehouse outlets here. If you would like to know more, please check it out here. There ain't much to shout on the food though, most of the time I will just dine in the neighborhood cafeteria or in Cantonese, they normally call it "Char Chan Teng", just like Wong Kok Char Chan Teng (WKCCT) in Malaysia except that the food in WKCCT is crap food, con Malaysian food. Any cafeterias here that you go put them to shame really. Average cost per set meal here would be in the region of HKD28-40. Set meal meaning one main dish and one drink.

Hong Kong is a bit similar like Singapore, the people here do not have the privilege to live in a large house or landed property. You gonna be a multi billionaire if you wanna own a landed property here. So obviously myself, I am staying in an apartment as well. Yes it is an apartment and not a condo and see for yourself the apartment here is higher grade than the condo we have in Malaysia. The name of the neighborhood that I am staying is Caribbean Coast. I do not bother to count the number of blocks but there are many blocks and each blocks are made up with 65 floors. Crazy huh?

And if you think you gotta be a billionaire to own a landed property here, then to own an apartment here you better gotta be a millionaire. I am talking bout the billions & millions in Ringgit point of view. Guess how much the apartment I am currently staying now? A mere 800sqft with the current market rate in HKG, it's about HKD2Mil, that is approximately RM1Mil. A simple calculation, it's a whopping RM1,250 per -square-blardy-feet.

And in HKG, I smoke lesser than I do back home. Over here, there is dedicated, designated area for smokers unless you wanna be fined HKD5k you can opt to smoke anywhere you like.

Hmm... the weather around this time is cloudy and it can be pretty windy at night. If you plan to come around this time, do remember your cardigan & wind-breaker.

Until then, more update soon!

ps: Damn! I forgot to remind you guys to get an Octopus Card, it is a must! Don't ask me why, you will need it!

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