Customer Support - HK

A source of great fun - and frustration - are the customer support departments of companies in Hong Kong. They probably are perfect if you're fluent in Cantonese, but when English is your only option it becomes a bit more tricky.

Take PCCW, the phone company, for example. After pressing '1' for English, you are guided through a whole phone menu to make sure you speak to the right person. So after a good couple of monutes of selecting 1 for English, then go for options 5, 4, 3, 7 and 9, you get to talk to an operator... who doesn't speak English :)

Another one: Watson's Water, the supplier fo the water fountains. I tried to order online, but was told I need a PIN number. Tried to call them in order to obtain my PIN number. There is no option on their menu to do this, but for about everything you want to do - and this includes talking to the customer service department - you need the PIN number.

auch

Problems with the water supply in my area last night. My landlady called the water company and was told that there wouldn't be any water until at least 10am today. In order to be able to take a shower, I went swimming in my local swimming pool. Great pool - 50m, open air, not very busy at 730am except for a bunch of old men. Old people seem to be incredibly fit here in Hong Kong. When i came out of the building I saw an old geezer put his leg on a wall that came up to his chest, and then he started stretching like we was preparing for the Beijing olympics. Respect!

After feeling pretty awake for the first hour after finishing my laps around this olympic sized monster, I now start aching about everywhere. So true what they say about swimming: it's a workout for your entire body. Or as my colleague put it: swimming in the morning, crippled in the afternoon!

Definitely need to keep this up :)

raindrops...

Last friday we had our first typhoon warning for the season. They've got level 1, level 3, level 8, 9, 10 warnings. Level 8 means you go home, companies get closed, public transport comes to a halt. Level 9 and 10 basically mean you hold on to whatever you have and hope for the best.
This time we reached level 3. This means that the typhoon is still far away (about 800km from Hong Kong on thic occasion) but you need to be aware of it in case it changes its direction and comes towards Hong Kong. It also means you get to experience some typhoon-related weather: heavy wind and heavy rain.
Heavy rain! My word, I haven't seen rain like this in a long time, if ever. Hard hard hard rain, without a break or without going softer or into drizzle for a while. Apparently there are levels of rain as well: amber, red - and black. Saturday was black. Had the time of my life! Put on shorts, put on flip flops, grabbed an umbrella and went out to buy stuff. Got absolutely soaked after a couple of minutes but it wasn't cold so I didn't mind. Actually, I loved it, felt like a big kid :)
The next day it was warm, sunny and humid again, as if nothing happened.

Things not to do in the morning in Hong Kong

A couple of things you should not do in Hong Kong in the morning on the way to work:

• Don't rush: makes you sweat and you arrive at work with your shirt soake
• Don't take a hot shower: makes you sweat
• Don't take the tram: it is slower than you think, so you have to get off and take the MTR. The running makes you sweat.
• Don't take the bus: the nice, orderly queue is endless so you're at risk of running late. You choose to go to the MTR instead. You sweat.

As a matter of fact, whatever you do in the morning, you sweat. Best thing to do, I guess, is to take five shirts to the office on monday, go to work in shorts and a T, and change upon arrival.

Off the beaten track....

In between work, the apartment and the shops I do manage to get some minor sightseeing done. Nothing major, but still:

I walked down the stairs that were used in 'In The Mood For Love', for the scenes where the girl goes out to buy noodles. It is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen, so even though the stairs aren't that much of a sight it's just nice to know.




Had dinner at Cafe de Goldfinch, where scenes of '2046' were filmed. Sequel to 'In The Mood For Love' , still haven't managed to see it till the end but I feel the moment is near.

Last but not least, I was in the building from where the SARS epidemic spread in Hong Kong :) The whole building was closed for weeks, they desinfected everything... This is what I found on Wikipedia:
"In Hong Kong the first cohort of affected people were discharged from the hospital on March 29, 2003. The disease spread in Hong Kong from a mainland doctor on the 9th floor of the Metropole Hotel in Kowloon Peninsula, infecting 16 of the hotel visitors. Those visitors traveled to Singapore and Toronto, spreading SARS to those locations."

Found a place to live!

Tonight is the night... after work I am signing the contract for my apartment in Hong Kong! Very pleased about that, it means my nomad style living is coming to an end. When I first arrived in Hong Kong I stayed in a hotel for two weeks. After that I cold stay with my colleague Robin for a week, until his in-laws arrived last saturday. I then found a serviced appartment where I was going to stay for a month, but the same day I came across the apartment I am going to rent. So for the past few days I could stay with another colleague instead of having to pay for the serviced apartment.



The apartment is in Tin Hau, vlakbij Causeway Bay which is one of the busiest areas in Hong Kong. The contrast could not be bigger though. The neighbourhood is an oasis of low rise buildings in a city where 30-40 floors is becoming the norm. I am on the top floor of a 5 storey building. No elevator. Downstairs is a car repair shop, just like there is in most of the buildings in the area. The people work on the streets, they know each other, this is a neighbourhood with a social feeling that has become very rare in this megacity.



A bit more about the apartment itself. Surface is 600 square feet. Living room with wooden floor. Two bedrooms, one with windows on two sides (no tall building next to mine so i have corner windows) and another one, slightly smaller, with one window. Kitchen is basic and has a strong 70's design: green-yellow structured tiles with the occasional bunch of grapes. Dito decoration for the bathroom, but it has a separate shower area which is not always the case in these old chinese buildings.



Nice bonus to all this is that I have the exclusive use of the rooftop terrace right on top of my apartment. It's about the same size as the apartment itself, and the cables and tv antenna make it the perfect starting point for an über-cool urban hangout. Pictures will follow once it is ready!



In a bid to be one person in this ecological disaster of a city who actually recycles, I will try to use recycled materials and second hand furniture as much as possible. I'll be the king of DIY - trying to keep Ikea at bay.