Round Robin

... Ok, I know it's not Christmas but I thought I'd write to let everyone know how it's been.




It has been wet and not so wild. It may be summer here but there have been some hard core thunderstorms. People here are obsessed with the weather, and there are updates everywhere. I can tell you that the storms so far have been Amber ranked, so God only knows what defcon three will be like. There are more Hunter wellies treading the streets here than in London, the Cotswolds and Glastonbury put together. It is paradoxical that I made it twelve years I'm England without an umbrella only to get to South East Asia and drown. I think I need a fashion poncho.

Speaking of treading the streets, I have a feeling that the Olsen's came here for inspiration. It sort of looks like people have taken Japanese street fashion and then bought a few backcatalogue editions of Grazia to pull their wardrobe together. At the moment there is actually a hefty smattering of Patricia Fields too. I tried to get a photograph of a guy on the MTR (ie. the tube or subway, but cleaner and with much more people) who was wearing a quilted Chanel tote, see-through tank top, harem pants and deck shoes. Unfortunately, it's illegal to take pictures on the MTR, and also he saw me and took offence after he realised I wasn't working for a fashion magazine. Don't get me wrong, I understand that fashion is very subjective, and it's better to be forward than on trend, but this dude was like a fashion genetics-splicing-incident. The locals here seem to be 45% fashion followers, 45% mainlander style and 10% genuinely stunning people.

That 10% goes a long way though. The expat community on Hong Kong island seems to be large, or at least very prominent. It also isn't particularly attractive. I caveat this, though. With the World Cup on, things have toned down somewhat, since people are keeping anti social hours and tend to be off the streets. It's entirely possible there is a nest of alphas hiding in a sports bar somewhere I haven't been. Based on where I have been though, it sure ain't purty. The stereotypes still stand, and you can see them everywhere. The bright side is that there seems to be much less of the 60/20 age pairings and more of the 30/20 age pairings. The awkward thing is that in the 30/20, a lot of the girls here are of the build that I associate with European children, which is really disconcerting. The flip side is that the FILTH stereotype also stands, and the blokes aren't exactly prizes. I have seen a grand total of three good looking men since I got here. Sadly, I didn't know any of them and still don't. The women generally look great and are often hardbodies. The ones I've spoken to tell me it's because the gym is a big piece of their social scene here, since the island can be a dating black hole for them.

Dating aside, the social scene here is dominated by women. There are drinks like Thirsty Thursday on all the time, and the attendees are typically 90% women. I suspect this is because women are generally more into the networking scene here, whilst the boys tend to bond in bars. Since I arrived here three weeks ago (on Wednesday!), I've had cake making, ceramics, molecular mixology, La Perla drinks and some work drinks. This is on top of general meeting up with friends, or dates with the Hubs. It's been difficult to find the time to explore! Although, we have managed to fit in a few strolls around deep dark Mong Kok and the more cosmopolitan (ie. it's touristy and consists of one shopping centre next to another and another and another etc.) Tsim Sha Tsui. We got to see the Bird Market (which managed to keep going despite Avian flu), Flower market and Goldfish Street. We rode the ferry across the harbour and watched the light show from various points on both sides. I had a foot massage and a Shanghai pedicure, after which I virtually dropped a shoe size. The Hubs had a posh haircut, which took about 2 hours. We've eaten out a lot ...

Which brings me to the food here. Local residents tend to make out that the food here is the best in the world, second only to perhaps Tokyo. While I would support the idea that Tokyo is probably the best in the world, I categorically would not place Hong Kong second. I appreciate that food and restaurants are always subjective, but from an objective perspective, I think there is some serious delusion here. Lets split the food scene into three parts - competing on a global scale, mid-range and standard*. One of my gripes about London was that there wasn't much in the "standard" range. You couldn't really find a decent meal for £5 or less, and by meal I mean a sit down and have a conversation-with experience. In the mid-range (£20 or less), things got markedly better while I was there, with places like Ciao Bella, Chez Lindsay and the chains opening up everywhere. Then on the "nice restaurant" front, I really thought London had a world-class offering. Automat, l'entrecote, Hole in the Wall, Fishworks, Dean Street Townhouse, Min Jiang etc all had good value offers at under £50. Then there's the pricier places like Viajante and Trompette at under or around £100, and what I thought of as the astronomical places like the Fat Duck, La Petite Maison and l'Enclume. When I was in California, I decided that there was a huge tick in the box for the "standard" stuff - I still have dreams about the smoked fish taco in Cayucos, and the burger at Hodads was insane value. Brophy Brothers, Casa and the restaurant-whose-name I never got in San Francisco convinced me that the mid-range was all covered. I struggled to find the low-end "nice restaurant" but was on holiday so probably just missed them. The pricier nice places were clearly available with places like Sierra Mar.. The French Laundry and Eiffel Tower were ticks in the astronomical category. The point I make here is that you generally get what you pay for, since in most places a bad pitch means a restaurant closes. No one will pay if there isn't value to be had.

Not true here.

The first thing to be said is that pretty much everyone in Hong Kong is a foodie. There are hundreds of restaurants and people from all over the world hankering for a taste of home, as well as a curious local population. What this unfortunately means is that standards can be low. If you dig local food, you can find lots of good to great food for under £5. I tend to hit these at lunch and really like the chains like 360 and Cafe de Coral, as well as the little hawker stalls, though these typically involve miming or Mandarin**. In the mid-range, I think there are a fair amount of decent places, like Crystal Jade and Tasty's, though there aren't many for under £20 that aren't Asian. In that range it seems to be non-Chinese Asian in the main. Then you get to the "nice restaurant" prices. At the lower end you can find places like La Creperie, Cucina and Sen-Ryo, but there is normally a bit of a sacrifice involved. For example, La Creperie had some marked organisational and service issues, Cucina had dripping air conditioning and forgot about dessert, and Sen-Ryo lacked walls and got the order wrong. A restaurant that, based on its offer, should be in this category, was Zuma, which also had some organisational issues. Unfortunately, Zuma here was priced like its London equivalent and just wasn't good enough for that price. Similarly, Cafe Gray, which was also in the over and around £100 range, was so mediocre I genuinely felt cheated and wanted to make a scene. Then, you get to the good guys. I have had two really good meals here, both at restaurants that feature on my favourite restaurant rankings (Hong Kong has four and I'd already been to one). One was traditional French at Amber, which had the best service I've experienced since 2007 (Claridges, the night I fell asleep at the table). The other was a semi-molecular meal at Bo'Innovation, which is the first restaurant I've been to that takes itself seriously but still has a sense of humour (spot the most bizzare dish ever in the link). I've already said too much on food for this post, since I'm potentially starting a seperate blog for food and cooking, but the summary is this: In Hong Kong there is only cheap and cheerful, or close to astronimical, unless you want to feel like a mark. There is a huge gap in the market here for somewhere decent, with great ambiance and great food, that isn't going to make your eyes water. This is based on three weeks here though, so no doubt there's plenty of time to find otherwise.

I have to admit, I wasn't actually sure if Cucina's dripping air conditioning was worth mentioning as a negative, since drips are a fairly everyday thing in Hong Kong. You can't walk down a street, or sit down in a restaurant, without an air conditioning unit providing you with an impromptu shower. This is on top of all the rain! One plus is that the infrastructure here is fairly sound, and there are covered walkways or cut-throughs to most places. The only thing is, these are difficult to navigate when you're in a hurry. Don't get me wrong, they are spacious and wide. It's just that Hong Kong is a crowded island. There are people everywhere all the time. The problem is that these people don't walk at the pace you'd expect, by which I mean they walk to the half beat. This is fine if you can get around them, but people tend to walk in threes or wavering pairs, and so it's difficult to get around them without barging them out of the way, which is actually what happens here. Admittedly, being taller than most people on the street helps me out a little bit here, though it did take some getting used to.

Being taller does have it's downsides though. The flats here are small and made for little people. They are also measured in a different way to what I'd expected. Basically there are "gross" and "net" square footages, and everyone advertises on the gross square footage, with the rent approximately reflecting the size. The difference between the two isn't built-in furniture, which is what I'd been expecting. It's actually a share of common areas such as the lobby, hallways and gyms. The reason this is particularly counter-intuitive is that you still have to pay management rates and gym fees on top of the rent. Not to mention that floorplans have the gross square footage and is marked "not to scale", which it couldn't be, since all those common areas aren't on the floor plan at all. The "net" square footage discounts these but ignores built-in furniture, which often doesn't exist in the buy to lets. The impact of this varies but generally speaking the newer aprtments, which come with everything from pools to indoor golf simulators to outdoor go-karting ranges, tend to be 60-75% usable space. The older apartments tend to be 75-80% usable, and the walk-ups tend to the nineties. The other thing that is different to what I think of as the norm is that tenancy agreements are between landlord and tenant. The agencies don't have an ongoing relationship with tenants and make money based purely on getting the property rented out. There are ordinarily two agents, one for the landlord and one for the tenant, and they get paid half a month's rent by who they represent as their commission. We were looking at 3 bedroom flats in Kowloon (commonly referred to as "the Dark Side" since some taxis will refuse to go there and expats generally reject it as a place to live)of at least a thousand (usuable) square feet, and typically these ask for around HK$50,000 a pop, which means that everytime a place is rented out, an agency earns HK$25,000 a side. On top of this, a holding deposit of a month's rent is paid once an offer is accepted, which becomes the first month's rent. Then a deposit of two months rent is paid over too. What all this means is that before you can move in anywhere, you're conceptually down HK$175,000, or almost £15,000 if you're in England. Ouch. All that before you think about things like wardrobes and a bed.

This tendency to have lump sums paid up front also shows up in mobile phone plans. We'd decided to go with a provider who was mid-range price-wise, but with the strongest reputation for service. The packages were fairly alright, coming in at about thirty pounds for an unlimited data package. A pound a day is absolutely worth gmail and google maps to me. The drama came when we had to pay a random amount upfront which would then be paid back over the life of the phone contract. Phone contracts here generally run for two years as a minimum, and the upfront cost was HK$5,525 each, or £500. Did I say, ouch?!

I have been a little flabbergasted by all this, if I'm honest. When I speak to the locals and ask them how they survive, they normally tell me they have to live closer to China, with their parents, or sell their souls to an investment bank. They've been priced out of most places and shop in China for luxuries and furniture, or shop in street markets. When I think about the number of shopping centres here, that's insanely unfair. Local legislature has been forcing cultural and lifestyle changes that a lot of the locals don't like, the latest example being the new policy currently being passed through the process, which requires the renewal of market stallholder licenses every three years. This may sound standard, but in Hong Kong it's a huge departure from the heriditary license structure. Stallholders will no longer be able to pass their licenses to their heirs, ensuring that they have a vocation.

I realise this sounds negative and I may sound like a hater when I'm not (admittedly to my surprise). I'm actually enjoying being back in Asia. Food aside, the MTR is affordable and works all the time, which is a huge improvement from London. Taxis are affordable if you're not in a hurry. People are open and friendly, much more so than I would have expected. Of course, there's domestic help, if you can find someone trustworthy, but that's a global problem. Taxes are good and I am tall. The cinemas here are cheap and up to date, which is a massive plus. If you can afford to spend, there is a lot available here that wouldn't necessarily be available elsewhere. For example, I'm wangling a junk to take us out to a neighbouring island for the Hubs' birthday. Speaking Mandarin and having questionable ethics has meant that we've been able to negotiate a good rent for a great apartment, and find furniture suppliers who hopefully will help us turn it into a home. Having a safe haven off the island has made me slightly more of a homebody, which is good. I am much better rested and condominium/service apartment living means we can go to the gym, so I'm a little healthier. I'm cooking more and drinking less, something I've been meaning to do for awhile. I am also optimistic about work here. The environment is bullish and everyone is positive as a result, a massive step change from Europe lately. I've just tried to summarise the things I've noticed as different to what I've experienced in the last couple of decades.

*This is based on a two course dinner for one with a shared bottle of decent wine and a coffee. The meals in the "astronomical" range are tasting menus with either wine pairings or one shared bottle of wine.

** I've had some bad experiences here since it's sometimes interpreted as a suggestion that the person you're speaking to is a Mainland Chinese person, which is pretty much the local equivalent to an Eastern European in London, and people sometimes take offence. I suspect a lot of this is driven by the wealth flowing into Hong Kong and driving up prices being Chinese wealth.