The Costs of Living in Hong Kong

We've been here for 2 1/2 months now, and have had an established weekly budget for the last 8 weeks, so I thought it time I shared how much it costs for the two of us to live in Hong Kong in a typical month.

First, here are the last four weeks of expenses in HK dollars:

This includes groceries, meals out, household items, snacks, etc.  It includes HK250 each for our monthly gym memberships.  It also includes several hundred dollars topping up our Octopus cards (used for the subway, buses, trolleys, and star ferry), as well as another hundred topping up Nora's prepaid phone.  It does not include utilities, our three day trip to Macau, or our rent.

On week 3, we went over our budget (HK1800), and I carried over the 293 to week 4.  With that in mind, you can see that our four week total is HK7,363, which is about US $950.  Or, to round up, about $250 per week for two people, including transportation costs, mobile phone bills, and gym memberships.  Considering how well we eat, and how often we go out to eat (usually twice during the work week, and then 4 or 5 times on weekends), I'd say that's pretty fantastic.

On to the next part: utilities.  Our monthly internet bill is HK168 (another fantastic price; for about US $22, we get 100MB service.  For comparison, 10MB service with Comcast back home is $60.).  Our water bill this month was HK45.  Our electric bill was HK434 (the government subsidizes electricity, and took HK120 off our bill). Our gas bill was HK61.  All told, our utilities come out to HK708, or ~US $92.

Last item of consideration, our rent.  We live in a nice place, with a balcony, a harbor view, and an in-house gym.  As such, our rent is a bit higher than most of our friends here in HK (for comparison, our friend K shares a two bedroom place with a roommate, and their total rent is about 15% cheaper than our 1 bedroom flat). Our monthly rent comes out to HK15,000, or a bit under US $2k.

Grand total for all expenses over the past month: just over HK23,000, or about US $3,000.

This is more than we were paying when we lived in Tennessee (our monthly expenses there were between $2,000 and $2,250).  On the other hand, we almost never went out to eat back home.  In addition, while I was making about $20k more a year there, Nora was unemployed and taking out student loans.  I'm making a lot less here, but we're no longer borrowing money, and Nora's job leaves us with about HK10k a month, or a bit less than a third of her salary, after all expenses.

Well, almost all expenses.  We do have this nasty habit of travelling.  Our 3 day weekend in Macau was very expensive--we went crazy and got this insanely nice room at at posh casino hotel.  In a week from now we'll be travelling to Singapore, where our lodging will be cheaper (a week in a hostel), but we won't be holding back on food and drinks--they're our favorite part of travelling.  Then in December we're going to Taiwan for 12 days, and in February we're going to Malaysia for a week.  There's another two week period in April that we haven't decided on yet, and a 6 week period in June and July that we'll be visiting the US.  All things considered, between what we're saving from Nora's salary and my online work, we don't anticipate to save a whole lot over the next year.  Perhaps US $5k.

But we will be paying off our student loans, eating some of the best food the world has to offer, and doing a lot of travelling.  More frugally minded people who don't have such a nice apartment or travel as frequently could easily save a lot more than $5k.  And couples who both work in HK would save even more still (an HK salary would be 3-5x what I'm making online, but we're forgoing that additional income for a year so I can concentrate on my writing).

So even though Nora's school doesn't pay for our housing, as our school in South Korea did, in the end Hong Kong offers an equivalent--or greater--opportunity to make and save money, enjoy life in Asia, and travel.  The biggest difference for us is that in SK we only got two weeks off the entire year, and the weeks couldn't occur back-to-back.  Here, between government holidays and school breaks, Nora has eleven weeks off throughout the year, during which she continues to receive a salary, making even the stresses of her job seem well worthwhile.

In other words, we couldn't be happier.

Living in Hong Kong

We've been here three weeks now, so I thought I'd share a few things.

First, you're perhaps wondering why we came.  We visited HK a few years ago during vacation from our teaching gigs in Seoul, South Korea.  While it was very hot and humid, pretty much everything else about Hong Kong excited us, and we pledged then that if we ever could live and work here we would.  Fast forward a few years.  Nora returned to school to get her teaching certification, realized that she wasn't all that jazzed about being a teacher halfway through, and settled on being a school librarian (these days they need teacher's certifications and a Masters in library science).  Nora took on both programs at the same time, which was a pretty astounding workload; I continued working online, and took on a lecturing position at MTSU because we were living about a mile away and it seemed like a good idea.  Long story short: we moved out of our apartment, I left my lecture position after three semesters, we went to India, Sri Lanka, and Ecuador, and meanwhile Nora applied to a lot of positions around the world.  Two in Hong Kong called her back, and a lot of paperwork later, we were all set to go.

(us at the Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island in 2010)

So we sold our car, our desktop computer, our Xbox, and my bicycle (the bicycle was the hardest to let go) and bought flights to Hong Kong.  We arrived the night of August 1st, got to our hotel, and slept.  When we woke up, it was my birthday, which I thought was a pretty good sign.  And aside from still very slowly recovering from the ankle I sprained in India, just about everything else has been a very positive experience.

(milk tea and Pearl dumplings in spicy sauce)

We gave ourselves 3 days to find an apartment, but thanks to Nora's research and emails in advance, we signed a lease on the first day and paid the deposit and rent on the 2nd and got the keys.  The building is relatively new, in a quieter (for HK) neighborhood, and has a gym on the 5th floor.  Across the street are two more buildings of the same complex, and they have a larger gym and a pool.  It's a 4 block walk to Nora's work, and so far I've visited four bakeries and six grocery stores within a ten minute walk.  Several major bus lines stop on the corner, from whence we can go downtown, to the subway station, or to the other side of HK island.

(rush hour at the Central subway station)

Within a 5 minute walk of us there are several cafes and bars, a public library, as well as restaurants specializing in Chinese (obviously), Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Spanish, Italian, French, American, and English pub foods.  We got a ridiculous amount of furniture delivered from Ikea and assembled for less than $200, and any of the above restaurants offer free delivery.  I've recently discovered that the grocery stores do, too, but to be honest grocery shopping is one of my favorite activities, so I'm not cutting it out anytime soon.

(Chinese breakfast: eggs, bun, noodles and soup, and milk tea)

Our apartment is on the 20th floor, and has a balcony with harbor views. We've got a kitchen with fridge, decent counter space, 2 sinks, 3 gas burners, and a washing machine.  We've got a table with two chairs, a chest of drawers, and a couch and coffee table in our living room.  the bedroom has a double bed and wardrobe.

(our apartment before we got furniture)

Potential downsides: we've got 410 square feet in our apartment, including the balcony. So it seems pretty small.  The weird thing is, after getting all our furniture moved in and our things stored properly, it actually seems larger.  It's plenty of space for us, though the shower could be a little larger.  It's difficult to turn around in for someone with arms as long as mine.  The washer is supposed to also be a dryer, but I can't get the drying function to work, and I broke the latch that opens it on the first day.  So I'm using a pair of scissors to open the washer, and we have to hang dry our clothes on the balcony, but these are minor inconveniences, and we hung all our clothes to dry the year we lived in Korea, too.

(light show from Kowloon)

Imagine, if you will, a city that is caught somewhere between the future and the past, a place where light shows illuminate skyscrapers to the sound of a symphony orchestra, and where bamboo scaffolding surrounds construction work on a traditional herbal dispensary.  Where you can buy 1 Gigabit internet service for the same price as 10Mb service in the States, and within a short walk also by dried shark fins.  Where ferries cruising above the waves on hydrofoils jostle for space with sampans, junks, and cargo vessels. There are tree everywhere, and from afar the buildings seem to rise up as if out of a forest.  The harbor on one side and the mountains on the other are omnipresent; no matter where you are, you can always orient yourself.  This, to me, is Hong Kong.

(walking along the harbor in Kennedy Town)

It's fast, loud, hot, and always humid.  It's a polyglot, gastronomical wonderland that encompasses the best of what big cities have to offer. The only thing it's missing is you.

(sunset over the harbor from our balcony)

Overdue Ecuador Recap

Ecuador was our 5th South American country and 3rd South American trip, so we went into it with a certain amount of experience and expectations.  But it was our first trip with either of our parents; Nora's came for the entire 4 weeks, and my mother flew down for 8 days.  This made it a rather unique trip for us.

(Ecuador's flag flying over the presidential palace)

Ecuador is a beautiful country, with very diverse geographic regions thanks to the Andes.  We started our trip in Quito, which for an Andean city was a bit disappointing--it reminded us a lot of Lima, in that it had good food, good weather, and very friendly people, but didn't feel all that special or unique. We've found that most big cities end up feeling very similar to one another these days (in South America Cuzco is a notable exception, and Buenos Aires deserves honorable mention).  This is not to say we did not enjoy Quito; on the contrary, we had a lot of fun there, and would consider going back.

(a brother and sister waiting on the bus after school)

From Quito we took a day trip to Otavalo, where most of the region's handicrafts originate.  We went to see the market, but were unlucky as only a few vendors were open.  It rained, so we ducked inside a cafe for a few drinks, and Nora found a "green" beer--beer mixed with creme de menthe.

Leaving Quito, we stopped overnight in Banos, famous for its hot springs--which ranged from ice cold, to lukewarm, to a scalding 120 degrees F; no tolerable soaking pool there, but it was still very relaxing.

We journeyed on to Cuenca where we had rented an amazing apartment with a long balcony.  This was probably the nicest place Nora and I have ever stayed. The neighborhood was a couple km from the sights in the city, but as taxis are so cheap (about $1.50 for a 10 minute ride), it was not a problem at all. And there was a Chilean empanada place around the corner that was fantastic.

(Cuenca crafts market)

                 

Cuenca we liked a lot, but for different reasons than Quito. It is still a big city, but it feels a little smaller, a little greener, and the weather is a little better--not withstanding the sudden rainstorm that Nora and her parents got caught out in. There's a reason so many Americans are retiring to Ecuador, and specifically locating in Cuenca.

(women in traditional dress, Cuenca)

(the central plaza in Sigsig)

From here we went to Salinas and spent a week on the beach, and from there to Puerto Lopez and spent another week on the beach.  Puerto Lopez was interesting for the place we stayed--Hosteria Mandala--and its host's whale obsession, as well as a boat trip we took to Isla de la Plata.  Otherwise, our time on the beach can be summed up as a lot of beer and wine, a lot of good food, and general relaxing fun all around.

(the porch of our cabana at Hosteria Mandala in Puerto Lopez)   

  

(a beach vendor selling cold coconuts in Salinas)

On back to Quito, and from there homeward.

The really exciting part of Ecuador was, like most trips we take, the food.  Ecuadorean food is generally very good, though you can get--and we certainly did on several occasions--garbage versions of it.  Beach towns don't seem to care about flavor or quality as much unless you're spending a lot more (notable exceptions: in Salinas there was a corner place that grilled over charcoal, and an English fish-and-chip shop; in PL a tiny Spanish restaurant run by a couple).  The Andean food was the best: secco de chivo (a thick stew of lamb or goat), llapingachos (cheesy potato griddle cakes), and locro de papas (a potato soup with chunks of queso fresco and avocado in it). The ingredients were familiar to the Peruvian food we've had before, but used in new and delicious ways.

 (locro de papas on the left, and llapingachos with lomito on the right)

(choclo con habbas -- large kernel corn with something like a lima bean)

(secco de chivo) 

Overall, I'd say if you can only take 2 weeks for South America, go to Peru or Argentina, depending on what you're hoping to find.  But if you have longer, or if you can take several trips, Ecuador will definitely reward your time and curiosity.

Happy travels.

 - A

Hong Kong

We've been lax in keeping up with the blog, but here's the long and short of it:

We returned to India from Sri Lanka, still did not enjoy ourselves, and so flew home early.

We spent a lovely 4 weeks in Ecuador.

We moved to Hong Kong, arriving just over a week ago.  We have a tiny, wonderful apartment in Kennedy Town overlooking the harbor, there are supermarkets and bakeries within walking distance, and we are very pleased with our decision to relocate here.

More details to follow in the coming days.  And pictures, naturally.

Hope your summer was as great as ours.

New Years Day

despite what one may hope for, life is not quite a U2 song. for one, the world i inhabit is not white. for another, to say that nothing changes is not quite accurate (nora and i are now the owners of our very own car, for example).  perhaps some other parts of that song still ring true.

after a particularly nerve-wracking flight to pennsylvania in december, we decided not to wait until may to purchase a car, and instead bought one there and drove it back. we're very pleased with the results.

in 4 days we have to be at the airport shortly before 7 am and will start the long journey to santiago.  there is one connection, in bogota, colombia, in which we have 45 minutes to pass through security and board our next flight, or else we will have to stay the night in the airport.  hopefully we'll make the window, because there are a lot of places i'd prefer not to spend the night, and the bogota airport is one of them. if all things go as planned, we'll be in santiago, chile early in the morning on the 6th, where we've rented a lovely apartment for a month.

from chile we have a week to meander our way to buenos aires, where we are renting an apartment for another month.  we haven't chosen that one quite yet, but we've narrowed down the list of possibilities from thousands to hundreds to dozens to a handful.  i feel confident in our ability to make the last step.

when our time is up in buenos aires it will be halfway through march. we don't plan on being home until the first or second week of may, and are hoping to be able to poke around uruguay, paraguay, bolivia, and peru in the remaining 7 or 8 weeks.  we'll see what happens.

enjoy the new year, everyone, wherever you are.

update from tobago

ok, so a lot has happened since the last time we wrote anything about our whereabouts and doings.  here's the short run of it:

had a great last week in seoul (complete with weathering a category three typhoon right on the coast in incheon), an amazingly unforgettable two weeks in japan, a great time in georgia for claire's wedding, and a occasionally hectic but mostly relaxing three weeks back in tennessee.

on the 14th we flew down to new orleans, where we met claire and daniel and did fun things like walk around bourbon, eat too much cajun food, and take a carriage ride.  i love new orleans, and we were sad to leave it behind.  but we had good reason:

we said goodbye to claire and daniel, got to the airport at 4:30 in the morning, and got on three different flights that eventually led us to tobago.  (the flight from trinidad to tobago is on a prop plane and lasts only about 20 minutes, but very interesting, cool, and somewhat slow.)

this is the morning of our seventh day in tobago, and i can say with only one qualification that we absolutely love it.  that one qualification is the mosquitos.  our cottage has no glass or screens on the numerous windows, and only some of those have shutters.  There is at least one doorway to the outside that has no door, and there are several feet of wall underneath the roof that are latticework and open to the outside.  this makes for a pleasant morning breeze, and cuts down some on the midday heat, but it also means mosquitos love our cottage.  and nora and i have had the misfortune throughout our lives of being adored by mosquitos more than anyone else we've ever met. so it's a banquet in here.

we sleep under mosquito netting, and keep two floor fans going on high speed all day and all night to discourage them from flying near us, but that only helps keep some of the away.  i've been wearing long sleeves, pajama pants, and socks almost continually, so nora has more mosquito bites than i do, but i've still got my fair share.

harrison ford has a house just up the street, and we've walked by a few times.  harrison, it seems, can afford real glass windows, and probably even air conditioning, so we're a little jealous but the signs on the gate of electrocution and being shot on sight have kept us from making a house call.

we are on a hill overlooking a golf course, which runs right up to the sea, and not far east of the golf course is a small beach.  we have been there several times, and never seen more than four other people there, so we consider it our beach. getting there involves a steep walk through the woods, and then across several holes of the course and hoping no balls come flying your way, and another short walk along one of the very pedestrian-unfriendly tobagoan roads, but then we are there, and it is nice. no mosquitos, very few people, clear water, nice waves, and usually not above 85 degrees.

back to the cottage: we have lots of birds and lizards and some iguanas that know our house better than we do and visit us frequently.  most of the birds are small, but once or twice a day two or three rather large birds with long tail feathers land on our porch railing and strut around, just to let us know they were here first.  they also scream at each other frequently at night, which sets the neighborhood dogs to barking, and wakes you up just enough to remember that there are probably mosquitos inside the mosquito netting that you can't see.  yesterday morning i killed nine inside the netting, three of which had had more than their share of blood.

the cottage is surrounded by palm trees, fruit trees, flowering trees, and other sorts of trees.  we wake up to birds singing usually, unless it is raining on the tin roof, which is also a pleasant way to wake up.

so far we have been to the grocery store twice -- once on the way to the cottage from the airport (our landlord, tony, is really awesome), and once again a few days later.  other than that, besides two ill-fated walks -- one ending with us being trapped in a thunderstorm, and seeking shelter in the carport of the house next to harrison ford's (we didn't want to be electrocuted or shot at his place), and the other being long, hot, scattered with chickens and dogs, and ending nowhere in particular -- besides that, we've only left the cottage to go to the beach.  it's very nice to have little to do all day (i'm teaching five classes this semester, and nora is taking five, so we still do have some work every day), and no more pressing decisions to make other than what to eat and whether or not one feels like reading in a hammock chair on the porch or reading on the beach.

so in summation, it is hot and the mosquitos are the bane of existence, but we're happy here and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

countdown

it's our last weekend in seoul

we have two days of work left, then a hectic scramble to get everything in order before we fly to japan for a week and a half.

if all goes according to plan, we should be back in the states mid-september, with new stories to tell and hopefully a long time of rest.

starting the countdown

so our long weekend is past, and now there's nothing between us and finishing our contract at the end of august except 4 weeks of no breaks.  still, 4 weeks is manageable.  and we have a 12 day tour of japan sandwiched in between leaving korea and returning to the states, so there's reason for hope.

about geyongju: it's awesome. don't go during the first week of august, because apparently every korean on the peninsula goes there, and it takes hours to go a dozen miles thanks to all the traffic.  apparently renting a bike is a good way to go, but there are lots of hills, and it is extremely hot in august.  beyond that, we had a fantastic time. i didn't see king munmu's tomb, but i did see several 1,400 year old buddha images carved into cliffs, and the UNESCO world heritage site of the Seokguram Grotto, which was really impressive, despite having to walk down from the grotto in the pouring rain.

there was a traditional korean play on saturday night that we watched; it was something about a woman trying to teach her husband to stop chasing after other women. it was a musical comedy, not a drama, so you shouldn't feel badly for the wife.  we had a great time at the gampo marina market as well; everyone there was thrilled to see white people, and when we ate at a crab restaurant they put us on the street to show us off to everyone walking by.  they also took pictures, but it was all in good fun. 

of course once we got back in seoul, on the subway ride home from gwhangwhamun where the bus dropped us off, we had a very unpleasant experience on the subway with some repulsive, leering indian men.  it wouldn't be the subway in seoul if we weren't made to feel extremely uncomfortable in some way, so it was sort of like a welcome home.

anyway, if you're in korea and you tire of the big city, i highly recommend gyeongju--especially if you like history.

Birthday Weekend

a quick update first: last weekend we went to the DMZ and JSA, stepped into north korea, toured the third tunnel, and had a slightly awe-inspiring time.  the signs warning of land mines everywhere were pretty sobering.  it's a spooky place, but the dozens of bird species that have made the undeveloped land home help liven it up a little bit.

now on to the good news:

monday is my birthday, and conveniently enough our private school has monday and tuesday off, so we get a four day birthday vacation.  we wanted to go somewhere in korea that was not a big city, that showed us a part of korea's history, and that had actual green growing things.  so to celebrate we are going to gyeongju.

gyeongju was the seat of the Silla dynasty, and home to dozens of kings' burial mounds, among other things. there is also a law that no tall buildings can be built here, and the city remains very small, so it is very easy to get around and there are supposed to be lots of parks and resting places -- though there is apparently very little shade and the sun can be intense, according to Juli-hee, our school manager.  there is also an incredible final resting place for king munmu: a small island off the coast is bisected by two perpendicular lines, at the crossing point of which is laid an enormous granite slab.  his remains lie underneath.  he stipulated that this be done upon his death so that he could become a dragon and protect Silla (the southern part of the korean peninula) from the Japanese.  he was pretty effective until last century.  perhaps after 1,300 years even a guardian dragon is allowed some time off.

to travel there we found a bus service that is free for all non-koreans (i wonder if they would let japanese travel for free as well?).  it was a lucky find, and we got return tickets absolutely free of charge.  we're staying in a hostel for three nights as well, in a private double room that may or may not have a bathroom, for a little under 120,000 won total.  so all in all, a pretty inexpensive long weekend away.

while in gyeongju i hope to tour the burial mounds, see king munmu's tomb, visit a nearby temple and take part in their sunday service and share food with the monks, walk along the beach, read a lot, write a little, and enjoy myself immensely. i hope you all enjoy my birthday as much as we will.