Apartment Searching

This morning Matt and I are going apartment hunting. Everything (housing-wise) is so tiny here. We were prepared for this, but no matter how ready you think you might be to live in a teeny-tiny apartment, part of me still wants to yelp in surprise everytime I'm shown an apartment. Some funny facts about HK housing:

1.) The apartments are measured in square-feet, which seems perfectly reasonable. However, what seems perfectly UN-reasonable is that the given measurements will more likely than not include the hallway outside the apartment, the window ledges, the elevator space, etc. You name it, they measure it and inflate the footage. So, we've been mostly looking at places advertised around 400-550 sq ft. In reality, these places are more likely 300-400 sq ft. The HKers are nuts.
2.) No one cooks. Seriously. Well, ok--they use a rice cooker and maybe a hotplate or something. But that means that no apartments have an oven (although we're going to see one today that claims to have one), and lots of apartments don't even have a cooking range. My plan of making friends by enticing them with American home-made pies seems to be crashing down around me. My hopes have been dashed. We have some friends here that told us they looked at an apartment once in a building that was 13 years old and had an oven--however, the oven still had it's original plastic wrap on. It had never even been turned on. Several people here have mentioned that they just bought a super-duper toaster oven and can bake muffins, small cakes, etc. in them. Hmmm. I'll just have to deal, eh?
3.) Most apartments come furnished with at least a bed, couch, wardrobe, fridge, and such. Two property agents have already inquired about Matt's height (when I'm searching on my own) and have said, "Oh!..Ok, we skip next one. Bed too small...". And sure enough, many of the provided beds are too short for Matt. HK is just one funny surprise after another. It's weird when so many of the ridiculous things I thought of before coming here actually turn out to be acurate. I guess it makes for lots of blog topics.

Anyway...
Well, here we go. I'll let you know how it goes.