uh oh... $250 HKD all you can drink

Wow... my coworker told me the other day about these bars near work that charges only $250 HKD ($33 USD) for all you can drink from 6pm through 4am from Mondays through Thursdays. He invited me to go to one last night and I gladly accepted, boy oh boy was it a bad decision... after about 18 beers and 2 large mix jugs of chivas and coke between the 2 of us, I stumbled home at around 12:30am.

Ahh the beauty of HK, with the MTR running till around 1am everyday, it's a superb way to get home safely, provided that you don't fall asleep and miss your exit.

Needless to say I woke up with a headache today... I later found out that apparently it's free for girls to go drinking at that place from Mondays through Thursdays as well, then it's $80 HKD after 11pm, must be nice to be a girl in HK. Could've fooled me cause we didn't see any girlies last night x-( The one thing about these bars is that they're not the normal ones you see from the street, they're actually all located on different floors within various buildings, I guess the all you can drink is the way to attract customers.

To China and back...

A big surprise came to me today when I went to apply for my Hong Kong ID card, turns out the immigration officer who stamped me in DID NOT place a stamp on my work permit!!! I was unable to apply for a HKID without it, so what did I have to do??? yup, go to China! I quickly called up a buddy of mine and he told me that it'll take about 2 hours to go to China a back, then off I went!!!

6 subways, $15 USD, 300 foot steps, and 2.5 hours later I was back at the Immigration building in Wan Chai with my freshly stamped permit and now I've got my HKID!!! I had wanted to buy some snacks in China while I was there, but since I was on such a short time crunch, I decided to only step into China's soil for a brief moment... but that brief moment made me fear for my life!!! why is it that I don't feel safe going into China by myself??? hmmmmm

Attached is a picture of what it should look like. Don't mind what's on the top right corner, those are from me going in and out of China.

Day 2

Since I forced myself to stay awake till 1am last night, I was able to wake up at 11am today!!! yay!!! I think I just might be able to get over the whole jet-lag issue... well, I never really had to deal with jet-lag whenever I go to Asia, it's usually when I go back, so I guess I won't have to worry about that for quite some time. =P

I walked so much yesterday that I decided to be lazy today and take the opportunity to ride the cable cars, which is actually a double decker bus that runs from one end of the island to the other. It was tons of fun at first, but the novelty wore off after about 10 mins, since there was really no one for me to talk to, other than myself. The goal for today was to have a quick look at all the neighborhoods where I might want to stay on a more permanent basis. Later on, I took a 2 hour walk from Sheung Wan back to Causeway Bay, which allowed me to better check out some of the areas to evaluate which one would be better for me. I think it's either going to be Wan Chai or Sheung Wan, now to find a real estate agent to show me some places in these 2 neighborhoods.

Day 1

sooo tired... must sleep
I've never walked so much in a day... landed in HK at around 9:20am, checked into the apartment (more like a VERY tiny hotel room) by 11:30am, unpacked and started walking at 1pm and finally stopped at 11:30pm... whew

Since I didn't get a good sleep I wanted to force myself to stay awake so that I would crash tonight and I think I succeeded!!! well, we'll see if I can fall asleep in this new environment.

First thing I did was go to the Causeway Bay MTR station and got a map of the subway system, then I roamed around Causeway Bay to better acquaint myself with the surrounding, such as figuring out where the nearest 7-11 store is (not that I really needed to since there's like 4 of them in a 2 block radius), the HSBC bank, and work location. Then I walked further into WanChai and found the meat/fish market, I had to buy me some mangosteen of course!!!!

snore... dang I'm falling asleep... where was I??? well, the rest is just walking some more, eating with Sylvia and some friends, and now I'm back... sorry guys, I'm sleepy so gonna be lazy today, oh yeah lets not forget that I ate a lot too!!! haahaa

PHEW...

Here I was thinking that I've already secured my serviced studios with Mr. Tse at Empire Studios... As I was about to wire my $3,000 HKD deposit over, we had additional email confirmations where we re-confirmed my arrival date, which is actually 7 days after the initial date we had discussed a few weeks ago, and he replied back with "please give me a few days to confirm our availability"...
GASP!!! I thought we were set? oh boy... I then patiently waited 2 full days before hearing back from him, and he confirmed that they will have a Deluxe Plus unit available to me. I still find it funny that Deluxe Plus is a 230 sq ft room.

Apparently someone else had query about moving in on June 14th as well, since I've pushed my date back by a week, I understand his desire to not have an empty unit. Luckily for me he was able to confirm the move out date for another tenant, which turns out to be on the day that I will be arriving. What are the odds?

Now to ensure I really have secured my serviced studio, I went to my bank and wired over the $3,000!!! phew...

Empire Studios!!!

YAY!!! Finally found a place that's a good value and it's within close proximity to work (2 blocks) in Causeway Bay!!! So for this 230 sq. ft. gem, which they so called deluxe plus room, I'll be paying $10,000 HKD ($1282 USD) a month... holy shit, that's 'how big?' you ask? Yup, it is a cardboard box, but this little cardboard box comes with a microwave, separate bathroom (apparently some places have the bathroom in the room, separated by see-through glass ONLY), double (full size) bed and a sofabed, that's right a sofabed. This means if anyone wants to visit me in the first month, you can sleep on that sofabed! I'm really curious as to how they can fit all of that within 230 sq. ft... LOL
What? you're thinking about visiting me and crashing at my place? sure, provided you do my laundry while I'm at work. =)

Here's the link to Empire Studios (I think it's the name of a record company in the US???):
Empire Studios
Apparently they've got daily rates as low as $400 HKD/night, which is a great deal since most hotels in Causeway Bay runs for around $1000 HKD/night!

Here are the other options I've looked at which after extensive research are the best bang for your buck.
Regents Heights in Causeway Bay starting from $8,500 HKD/month
eTech Center Wan Chai starting from $11,000 HKD/month
Emperor Hotel in Happy Valley starting from $12,000 HKD/month