My new home

Three weeks in Hong Kong have already gone by. Is it three already? What people have been saying might’ve been true after all. Three months in Hong Kong might indeed be too little.
Even after the first week of all those new impressions, there are still new things happening for me every day. And of course, I have been looking for them deliberately, as most of you could’ve guessed. I’ll probably write about adventures in the city some other time, because there’s only so much that fits into one story. Since there was a request about my new home, and it makes sense, I’ll tell you a little about that. And while we’re at it, I’ll make you jealous with my work’s location, too.
Some pictures to go with this story are added for you all to see.

When I came from the airport and was in the train to the right part of the city it was already evident: there are a great deal of huge buildings. How do they even fit on this little piece of earth? And a little later as I walked the streets I still wondered where all those people would go to at the end of the day. A few even lived under viaducts, as happens in too many cities. Seeing the homeless people, and all the other people on the street, I began to feel more and luckier with the room I’d managed to get my hands on. Still having no idea how big the room or even the apartment would be, I felt very happy just to be having a roof over my head for the next months.
With a little searching I reached the front door and my two housemates (Billy and Nadira) gave me a warm welcome. The apartment wasn’t very big, but what could you expect in this kind of city? They are living in this apartment with the two of them and are still willing to share it with an extra person. And they are giving me one of the rooms. Wow. That was enough for me to really like them. And the apartment looked cosy too. Tidy and cosy. By the time they show me my room, I’m not even surprised by the size anymore, and I deeply love every square decimetre that I may use. The room has a double person bed, shelves, windows (yay, sunlight!), blinds, a laundry basket and even a second set of bed sheets. What else could I be asking for, really?
The apartment has a living room, walk-in closet, small bathroom, bigger bathroom, kitchen, big bedroom and my bedroom. Note here that not all local houses have kitchens. Why bother if you’re out for work all day, and you can’t afford the extra space? Living in such houses is much easier if you don’t keep anything you don’t need. Even clothing, there’s only so much you can wear in a week, and in the weekend you can do laundry again. Something that helps being efficient with the space is a flatscreen television. By the size of ours it seems that my housemates like watching movies quite a bit. Sometimes I think of them as “my humans”. Not because anyone is seen as property, but because the cat is said to think of people as “her people” and “her humans”. It is also said that Kitty doesn’t get trained by her owners, but that she is the one training them instead.

Last week faith wanted that my dear Billy and Nadira went to Shanghai for a week because of work. They asked if I wanted to look after Kitty, and of course I would. Now, since meeting up with friends is usually restricted to bars and such - you know, people not having enough space to meet up at home - this was a great opportunity to invite people to my humble home! Although feeling a bit weird about inviting newly made friends (couchsurfers) into a house I’m still getting accustomed to, I got my housemates’ approval and looked forward a lot to hosting my first dinner party in HK. The friends helped organize it, where happily surprized about the apartment, helped cook and generally had a good time. Wine was consumed, jokes were made, laughs were had. Soon plans were made for a next party.
Fun fact here is that the Frisian onion soup, with real Dutch clove cheese(!), was a great success.
One working week later, a second dinner party was held. Some communication and some work obligations didn’t work out as hoped, but there was a dinner party with five people once again. This time it felt a bit more natural to invite friends over, and the shopping and chopping of the groceries went more according to plan than with the first dinner party. A good, healthy meal was eaten once again, and people enjoyed themselves. Two went out for partying, the other two stayed at my place to end up surfing my couch.

Since my house has become a home, you might want to know a bit more about my second home. It is certainly different, but it really is a nice place to be at. The office I get to work at is only one bus line away from my neighbourhood, Yau Ma Tei. At the south-west side of Hong Kong Island, the air is much better than in most of the Island and Kowloon. Near the Queen Mary hospital is a new building which the Institute of Human Performance took their place about a year ago. There is a roof terrace, but even the view from our third floor is breath-taking. There are mountains, there is green, there’s an ocean-view, and did I mention the salty breeze?
As if that isn’t good enough yet, my supervisor told me to take the rest of the week off when I first set foot in the office. The rest of the people weren’t in yet anyway, and the touristy things would distract me anyway, so I guess it was the best choice for my productivity really. And today too, I visited a temple, cemetery, park, museum and dojo, to give the articles some time to sink in. Tomorrow I’ll be extra motivated to get work done. It will be a good day to ask my assistant how the hardware for my testing is coming along and if he might have any good ideas about the theories around it. And if it can’t be helped, I’ll have lunch with some of the colleges or get them to join me for some sitting on the roof terrace. I know they’ll bring me down to the sports fields to do some sports afterwards, so I’m sure I won’t have to worry about that!

Looking forward to your reply's!