A word of warning

Outside the Feather Boa bar. A notice has been taped to the door, from the inside. It reads:

Republic of Singapore

DF

My name is DF

My actions have caused embarrassment to the staff and patrons of the Feather Boa. I am deeply sorry for all the trouble caused to all the members of the club Feather Boa.

The understanding shown by the staff of the club has been very appreciated with nothing other than this announcement and paying the cost for the damage of the door has been asked for. There was a loss of business [and] nothing was requested.

In this respect, the club and its staff have only requested this apology in addition to the repairs.

We have paid HK$8000 in respect of the reparations.

Damage $8000

News party $6000

dfly@mgmt.org

Name disguised to not add insult to injury

A non interview

Photo from: HRInmotion

What does one wear to a non job interview? I'm meeting a friend of a friend tonight who is generously humoring me with a drink to discuss whether I could potentially be employed by anyone ever again. No pressure.

Now, I don't have any problem with formal interview attire: skirt, shirt, flat shoes (to not intimidate any shorter male interviewers), ponytail and deodorant. These are my key interview staples. My problem lies with this in-between-oh-we're-just-meeting-for-a-drink-and-then-we'll-see-what-happens attire.

I asked T this morning, before he left the house dressed in a designer suit, with shoes to match. His outfits are always impeccable, which is most annoying, as I always have to change at least three times before leaving the house before any occasion that involves more people than just the two of us. Sometimes I think, sod it, and go out in whatever I was already wearing. This is usually a mistake.

Anyway, so I asked T what I should wear and he said, "Wear what you want her to see."

"And what's that?" I ask. He looked at me blankly. Probably wondering how he landed up with a non French girl.

What do I want her to see? People who know me would say that I have at least one working brain cell and that my disastrous dress sense is one of my endearing qualities. The crux lies in what people who don't know me see.

Take the Mona Lisa. The fact that she decided to wear her hair parted in the middle and loose, instead of tied up in a bun, made a big difference. Or that she is wearing a veil. That morning, before she met Leonardo, she must have changed at least a dozen times. Thinking, little,useless veil? or no little, useless veil? My heart goes out to Lisa, or Mona.

Chore of the day: Pull out all summer clothes and look for something that shows you're "effortlessly" (biggest understatement ever) smart, stylish and someone you want to sit next to at the office Christmas party.

Haggling: A rough guide

This morning, well noonish, I was sitting downstairs have my morning coffee at my fave coffee shop. Which I go to because the lady behind the counter is friendly, not because of the coffee, which is terrible and needs to be mixed with lots of Splenda to taste more or less decent. Even T needs Splenda in it and he thinks putting anything sweet in coffee deserves corporal punishment. He's French, bless him.

Anyway. She asked me how my trip to Horizon Plaza had been, and I told her it had been a disaster all round.

"How much they say?" She asked

"$11600HK to build a wardrobe"

"$11600HK???!!!! You must negotiate! You must shout and be aggressive and don't let them say no. You must say: why so expensive?! why so expensive?! and you must point and look angry! You must get the price to half what they say! You people don't negotiate enough!"

Right. Good point.

So off I go to Wan Chai, East Queen St which the forums have also highly recommended. These forums are losing more and more credibility.

I walk into a furniture shop with pretty crappy furniture, so I think this is a perfect place to get a good, cheap wardrobe (The place is called Takad if anyone is interested). I only need it to last 12 months! So as long as it holds out for that time, and costs less than IKEA, I'm taking it. I also come equipped with my newly acquired agro-haggling skills.

I spot the wardrobe style I like. I give the shopgirl, who looks about 14, the dimensions I need and then I ask her the key question:

"How much?"

Vigorous clicking on calculator. Using times and division buttons.

"$6000HK"

So, here's my moment. The price is quite good actually, but I know that I should negotiate in principle. I tower over her, wave my arms around and shout:

"Why so expensive??!! Why so expensive??!!! Is too expensive!!!!"

Girl closes her eyes and shakes head vehemently,

"No negotiate! No negotiate!!!! Is factory price!!! Factory price!!"

Factory price my arse. I continue to haggle, thinking I'm being rather good at it and that I look just like coffee shop friend, and that she would be quite proud if she saw me,

"If I Chinese you give me half price!!!! Not good price!!"

She then looked over at the manager, who was leaning in the corner working his way through jelly babies, and started to laugh. She actually thought it was hilarious. She said something to him, which I'm sure was something like,

"Fool"

I knew it was over. I couldn't believe how badly my plan bombed. It's a little embarrassing actually. I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the mirrors in the shop, and I looked a right state.

The other 5 places I went to asked for even more, and all clearly have very expensive factories, which I'm sure are reserved for the most discerning customers who require the best quality at the best price. Funny how none of them have a price list. Or a website.

What's even worse, is that I'm going to have to go back to the place-where-I-haggled-hard. As they do, after all, have the best price. This is a cone of shame moment.

Site of the Defeat of the Haggler

Chinese proverb of the day

If you're not a local, don't bother haggling. The price won't come down.

Bricks and mortar

Thanks to the sheer non existence of Hong Kong webpages (as one shop owner said to me "no website! People steal ideas." Takes one to know one..) most places are a mystery before you arrive. And only once you arrive can you get a sense for what you needed to bring/think about in advance etc. So, just about everything takes me two trips to do. And I've been trying to be a little more local, taking buses everywhere, which means at the end of the day, I've achieved nothing and am COMPLETELY exhausted. Examples of a few double trips I've had to make:

• Open a bank account - don't have a valid proof of address* = return home to unearth anything that proves I'm alive

• Brainstorming session at a friend's company - skirt too tight and clingy for the hot and humid weather = return home and remember to open windows before choosing an outfit

• Unblock phone - think the place looks too dodgy = return home and sit on forums all day looking for keywords like "unblock iphone, AT&T"

*There is a list of things which are deemed valid proofs of address: passport, ID, library card, letter from anyone to you. Note that it doesn't matter where your address is, as long as it's deemed valid..

But, it's really weird not to know what a place looks like before you get there. We're spoilt by NYmag, I tell you. Case in point. I went furniture shopping yesterday to a place called "Horizon Plaza" which I'd read about in asiaexpat. People referred to it as, "A furniture warehouse in Ap Lei Chau". Groooaan, just what I needed.. elbowing my way through crowds with nothing but a lampshade for protection..

Bargain Hunters Paradise (Mongkok)

But when I arrive, I find myself to be in a rather lonely street with nothing there expect for a crumbling building and this..

Triad Car

I walk into the building only to find a wall of signs. This is shady. The hot sexy mama parked outside must belong to some mafioso who runs a drug operation from the basement, ha! Horizon Plaza, I knew it was a dodgy name. This is one of those moments which you read about in the paper and everybody tuts at how obvious the situation was and how they would never walk-around-alone-in-a-desolate-neighbourhood and on her own at that.

Shady Signage

I brace myself for the worst. I can always run down the back stairs if there's trouble. The numbers in the lift are only even numbers.. meaning that the odd numbers are reserved for the drug lords. I press 28 and wait.

Snotty nosed furniture, at your service

Hamptons Furniture??? My dreams of Nancy Drew fame dissolve as I see that I am in the most expensive home decor warehouse known to mankind. Every single floor had furniture that looked like something out of Architectural Digest, and prices to match. The cheapest guy I could find to build a wardrobe for Boom Boom was asking $11600 HK. That's enough for a small cottage in the Chinese countryside!!!!

• Go to buy furniture - furniture stores are 200 times more expensive than budget = return home and spend afternoon munching Pocky sticks and flicking through the IKEA catalogue

Is this fair??!!

Sorry to have to vent. As I mentioned this morning, we've signed a lease for Boom Boom. Despite this, we haven't actually heard a squeak from the landlady and we have to do all our dealings with her through her thug broker, con-woman #2 (CW2), who's a nasty piece of work. She also knows she's up to no good, as she's dropped T off her emails to me, because she knows that he knows she's trouble.

Anyway, here's the situation I'm now finding myself in; Boom Boom has no wardrobes, it comes with an oversized fridge which can't actually fit in the kitchen and it has an extra washing machine which the landlady can't be arsed to take home with her, so it's living in the fire escape (I think I mentioned this already).

So there-is-no-space.

Today I went to look at smaller fridges (one that actually fits in the kitchen), find custom wardrobe builders (to build the wardrobes that nobody thought of to build) and find a carpenter who can make a box for the fridge to live in (so it's not holding court in the living room). All of this paid for by moi, as CW2 claims the landlady would be offended. Offended?? By what?? By her tenant asking to not have the apt she's renting used as the landlady's personal storage space??!!!!

But, in good old expat fashion, I've been agreeing and smiling politely at all these crazy terms.....until today. We had asked CW2 to get rid of a hideous ceiling lamp in the living room. And today I get this email from her:

...Regarding the ligting in living room, as it's provided by landlord, I can get handyman to take it out for you. and you need to find the space to store it and put it back when tenancy completed....

I need to find the space????!!!! Is she completely mad?? There is no space to put my socks away, let alone a lamp that looks like a spaceship with two headlights! And to top it off, we're going to have 2 fridges, 2 washing machines and no wardrobes!!! And why is she telling me what I need to do??!!! If anyone's offended, it's me!

Clearly there is no point in talking to evil CW2 any further, as she clearly doesn't give a damn if we have to live with any entire electronics shop in the house. So I'm now going to wait until we get the landlady's phone number, which is currently under maximum high security protection in CW2's office, and hopefully infuse this situation with some reason. Or is this normal?

Boom Boom Home

4 brokers, 2 con-women and 22 taxis later, we found a home! We are now the proud renters of Boom Boom. Boom Boom is perfect in every way, with the one tiny drawback being that they're blowing up the neighbourhood around it. We can't really see the construction work happening, but we can feel it. The place vibrates every weekday from 7 to 7 (although broker #4 aka conwoman #1 would swear it only vibrates and goes boom! 1 hour a day.. from noon until 1pm..). But we love it enough to optimistically think that I'll eventually get a real job and not have to spend all day holding onto handlebars as I move from one room to another doing my wifely duties. It's also a little thin on the storage front. For example, the washing machine was in the fire escape when we first viewed it. I asked the broker whether it was kosher to use the fire escape for storage. Her reply was, "it's your escape, so you choose." Can't beat Chinese common sense.

So, I thought I'd share my newly acquired Hong Kong flat hunting skills with you. Here are the top ten* things you need to be mindful of when looking for apts in HK:

1. Get lots of brokers as they all have different databases. Brokers who helped me: Colliers, Engel and Volkers, Habitat property, L.J. Hooker. Very useful website: Hong Kong Asiaexpat
2. Ask for the net size of the apt, not the gross. Net refers to where you'll actually be living, while gross includes the entrance all, stairs, lift etc
3. Take brokers' advice with a pinch of salt (this is a gross understatement)
4. Resign yourself to paying double the rent you paid in NYC, and triple what you paid in Europe
5. If you see construction work - go to the site and phone the supervisor (there's a little papelito outside the site with a list of names and numbers). The two I phoned sounded Oxford educated and were very helpful in clarifying just how long they'll be demolishing the neighbourhood for. Don't waste your breath asking the broker (see point 3)
6. Accept that buildings with pools/gyms have pokey and cramped apts that would put most Spanish architects to shame. However, derelict Chinese buildings that are over 20 years old and have toothless porters and cabbage odors in the entrance hall, will have nicely renovated apartments and open plan layouts
7. Choose a place that's less than 15 minutes away from work, and that has ready access to cabs. In trying to prevent T from having to carry two shirts around with him all day, we only looked for places that were on a direct bus/tram line and wouldn't be cabless in the morning
8. Say no to apts that look up the neighbour's bum. Unless neighbour-spotting is your hobby
9. Measure the bedrooms to make sure you can fit a double bed in them. Often the rooms are designed for a 5ft dwarf, sorry, 'vertically challenged' person
10. Always negotiate the price down. But be careful not to 'hurt the landlord's feelings', which really means that you have to always allow a little room for the landlord to feel comfortable that he's ripping you off ever so slightly

*Top Tens are a new thing I learnt from the French this week

Off to find custom furniture makers to build strangely sized wardrobes!