Hunting for a new home We've been here just over 2 years, and so the lease on our apartment in Mid-Levels has expired. Which means of course the landlord took the opportunity to increase the rent (19%!). Initially he was thinking of going after the market rate, which would have been an increase of 57%. Insane. However, even at the lower increase this place has become too expensive, so we are now looking for another place to stay.

The nice thing is we get to live in a different part of Hong Kong - the bad thing is that our $ doesn't buy anywhere near as many square feet anymore. No matter where we go we are probably going to end up in a smaller apartment. How small you ask? Well, the smallest we've looked at so far was about 480 square feet. That's pretty small.  ¶ 10:39 AM (0) comments links to this post

  Back in the Big Smoke After three weeks of clear blue skies it's quite a shock to be back in Hong Kong - dull grey smog everywhere. Still, in some ways it's also good to be back to begin what will be quite a busy year, not least because we're now expecting a baby (sometime in July). We've been working on names but so far we've really only narrowed it down to Buscopan (for a boy obviously), and Cinnamon (for a girl).

Meanwhile, for those Australians living overseas who are missing the ABC as a source of news and entertainment, may I suggest the fearsomely good ABC Now multimedia player. Radio and TV news and other programming all available instantly. It's brilliant.  ¶ 9:45 AM (1) comments links to this post