Christmas in September

We’re just about to complete our 4th week as Hong Kong residents and it already feels like we’ve been living here forever. Life in Troutdale seems far, far away, literally and figuratively.

Our shipment of stuff from the U.S. doesn’t arrive until next week and it will feel like Christmas morning when it does. I can’t wait. We gave away most our belongings to family and friends before we left and everything else pretty much was donated to charity. However, the things that made it to the final cut will be arriving soon, and they seem like treasures right now. Mark’s guitar….my yoga mat…Bailey’s furminator dog hair brush…(Our apartment is hard wood floor throughout and Bailey has shed enough hair to make a small dog. Her shedding brush will be heaven sent.) There are all kinds of little things Mark will be surprised I decided to ship, but I’m so glad I did. Like the 4 canisters of Crystal Light and a stash of Ziploc baggies. Life's little pleasures.

This past week was filled with lots of shopping to get our new apartment set up with all of life’s essentials. We’ve done lots of shopping, but not much buying yet. The thing with Hong Kong is there are a billion stores. Every corner has a new shopping mall to discover which makes me hesitant to buy because there’s always that thought “What if something better is just 1 block away?” We did buy some new dishes from GOD. (I threw that in for my mom and dad). Actually GOD stands for Goods of Desire and it’s a really cute store. The dishes are really cute too.

Another shopping find this week was Jusco shopping center. It’s the closest thing to a Target store I’ve seen so far. And, it’s right around the corner from us. 4 floors of everything you need all at a reasonable price. You could live there if you needed too. Not too surprisingly, there is a huge apartment complex attached to the Jusco. So some people can just hop off their apartment elevator, walk across the hall and boom, they’re in the store. In Hong Kong city planners thought ahead!

Of course, living in Taikoo Shing, we also have the ginormous City Plaza shopping mall right down the street that has hundreds of shops, restaurants, theater etc. I haven’t bought much there yet, but it’s comforting to know it’s right there if I need it.

On my walk with Bailey this evening, I was happy to discover a cool breeze and incredibly pleasant weather. The weather is just perfect today and the city is very pretty with the sun shining on the water and palm trees blowing in the breeze. You’d think it was Hawaii if it weren’t for the 8 million people and all the concrete.