Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

So our first holiday in Hong Kong is Mid-Autumn Festival.  This year it is right next to National Day so we get a 4 day weekend.  Mid-Autumn festival was described to me at work as a celebration of when the Ming dynasty came to power over throwing the mongol rulers of the Yuan dynasty.  But there are so many other meanings.  It is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese calendar (typically September to early October).

And the food to eat is Moon Cakes. They are hard to describe.  So I was a tourist and took pictures of the stands selling them near the MTR station yesterday.

Display in the park across the street from us.

Our New Pad (soon)

Well we found a place!  We are just waiting on the finalizing the paperwork and for our shipment to arrive and clear customs.  I took a few pictures yesterday during our walk through.  It has nice, tall ceilings, which we love.  It is 3 bedrooms - Well really one bedroom and two closets :)  but perfect for us.

Here is the living / dining room when standing at the front door.

Here is the master bedroom.

View out both the living room and master bedroom.

Master Bath - The shiny chandelier was the key selling point  :)

More master bath

Hallway to 2nd & 3rd bedrooms.

Balcony off of living room.

Guest bath - gotta love those light fixtures (only light fixtures in the place are in the 2 bathrooms and the kitchen.  We will have light fixtures installed in the bedrooms and living room)

Guest bedroom that will turn into a closet - there are NO closets anywhere.

View from guest bedroom

Another view from the closet room.

Washer & Dryer - VERY rare over here.  We love that.

Patrick in the kitchen - That's the one and only shot you'll see of him there :)

Top to bottom - Microwave, steamer and a standard oven (yeah)

View from kitchen window

Standing on the balcony and looking left.

Looking down from the balcony at the common pool

And to the left from the balcony.

Looking back up at our tower from below.

Our tower entrance

After the walk through we made out way to Ikea in Kowloon Bay to look for closet and storage options.  Yes the swedish meatballs are the same in HK as anywhere else.

House Hunting Day 1

On Friday, Sept 21 was our first take at House Hunting.  We saw 5 apartments in West Kowloon all in different buildings of the same complex - which is attached to an underground shopping mall & MTR station.

The first place was the most western and topped our budget.  They would not let us take pictures.  The second place was still occupied and way too crowded (not stages well).  So I did not start taking pictures until #3.

Day #2 of House Hunting will be next Saturday - or briefly after work this coming were.

So here is what we saw:

Apartment #3 - The Harbourside - newly renovated unit

Apartment #4 - The Arch - view not a good, but place was not that bad.

#5 - The Waterfront - this unit had closets (rare), but also had some 1980's looks - even though the building is only 12 years old.