You Know What They Say About A Man With a Small Apartment...

Welcome to my living room.

Much has happened since my last entry. Lots of celebrity deaths, North Korea is acting the angry child again, Iranians have learned, much like Democrats did in 2000, that elections can be stolen, and The Girl and I have moved to a new place.

Obviously, the most important of these is my new place, so I'll talk about that.

It's not that we disliked our old place, it's just that with the wife unemployed and me raking in indentured servant's wages, we weren't willing to keep paying more in a month than most people in third world countries make in a lifetime. And, if I'm honest, there wasn't really all that much to do there other than watch people count their money, ignore their children and devise new and clever ways to abase their Filipina domestic helpers.

We were ensconced in an overly secure, exclusive expat enclave and rarely, if ever, ran into anyone who wasn't an investment professional or married to one. This, for me, wasn't ideal as I think most of those guys are dicks. Sorry, just my impression. To be fair, I'm sure some are perfectly tolerable. And only the guys- I don't really know many female investment pros except my wife, and I obviously think she's cool as hell. (I gotta say that- she reads this thing)

So, we've moved out of the Sorrento development high atop Kowloon MTR station, and have settled in to an area of HK called Sheung Wan. Sheung Wan is old Hong Kong and it's on the edge of Central HK (home to Dior, Armani, scores of Rolex shops and the financial district). So, we're kind of in the epicenter of HK, but living in a more down-to-earth type of area. We still have a nice apartment, but Starbucks out of reach.

For my part, I had nothing to do with choosing this place as I'm teaching full-time again and I don't really have much time for anything but that and the commute. I did, however, insist that I have a view of the water. Other than that, I didn't really care where we moved to.

BIG mistake, that.

It's not that I didn't want to move to Sheung Wan. In fact, we lived here in a furnished apartment for about three months as soon as we moved here and I loved it. The area has character. It's old China meets new China and I find that fascinating.

No, my problems lie elsewhere. First, the apartment itself. When she took me here to show me the place a couple of weeks ago, I walked in and said "I hate it." Then I looked out the living room's picture window only to realize that I was staring at Victoria Peak, not Victoria Harbour. That is to say, our apartment faces away from the harbour.

Look, I don't mind looking at a mini-mountain every morning when I get up, it's just that my view is clearly waterless. When I called her on it, she used a technicality to argue that I never expressly stated that I wanted to see Victoria Harbour and that, if I looked real hard, I could see the bathtub-sized fountain at the entrance to our building.

On top of that, the bathroom is miniscule, the living room is more like a closet and, God help me, the bedroom is smaller than my office at work.

I guess there will be no installing the pommel horse and gymnastic ring set that I bought for the bedroom...