Welcome to the Kirkland's

It's our very own apartment and we love it. Every little (and I mean little) inch of it. As I mentioned during our apartment search, these Hong Kongers have a skewed sense of what should be counted in the square-footage of an apartment. It's completely normal for landlords to include part of the outside hallway, the window ledges, the bathtub, cabinets, drawers, perhaps even the elevator shaft in their careful calculations. Somehow I don't think this would fly in the USA. That's the kind of thing my law-suit happy fellow American would throw a hissy fit over. But that's not the case here, comrade. When we looked at the apartment, our property agent gave us a quote of about 400 sq. feet. That's roughly half the size of our former apartment in Lawrence. So, as I type this blog, Matt is taking the actual measurements which I will reveal at the end of this blog. Gives you something to stick around for.

But that silliness aside, let me give you a quick tour of the place:


(As you can see, that's me.) Hi, Hello, come on in. Did you enjoy the flight? It's a doozy, I know. Well, at least you can rest easy knowing that we've got a nice, cozy IKEA sofa-bed waiting for you. Oh, and please don't mind the shower curtain in the window. It's the best we could do until we get a little more settled. Didn't want to pick out curtains until we got to know the place a little better. For some reason, deciding on curtains is really difficult for me. Too bad it didn't come outfitted with those great Venetian blinds we had in our last home. I loved those things! The dingy white color went so well with our dingy white walls. (Well, until I got them stuck in the vacuum cleaner. But we'll leave that story for another day.) We live on the 13th floor, which we find ironic because that floor is often omitted completely from buildings all across the USA. In China, 4 and 14 are unlucky numbers (4= death, 1= certain, 1+4=certain death), so you won't find those floors in most apartment buildings. I guess if the Chinese don't think 13 is unlucky, then I don't care either.
Our living room is really quite simple and bare, but at least it's something to come home to. In another month or so the rest of our boxes from the states should arrive and then we'll get this room looking real sharp. For now it remains an IKEA wasteland.

This is the view from our livingroom window. Better than most apartments we looked at. No ocean view, but we're not complaining.


This is the view looking down from the livingroom window. As a girl who has a teeny-weeny bit of height-fright (ok, I lied--change that to MASSIVE case of height-fright), it took some getting used to. But now I'm just fine. I even managed to wash the outside of the windows--as much as I could reach anyway. That's a huge accomplishment for me. When we first moved in I wouldn't even get close to them.



This is our tiny bedroom. Think college dorm room minus the bunk beds. Just out of view are some built in closets that make up our entire storage area. Who knows what we're gonna do when our 20 boxes from the states arrive. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I take heart knowing that half the capacity of those boxes are taken up by packing materials. Still, it will be a daunting task trying to find a place to cram all our stuff.

And not to be forgotten, the crown jewel of our room, it's the bed-time Snoopy drawer pulls that really tie the room together. They are classic






Here's a look into our lovely bathroom. Nice and clean. Never mind the upsidedown pink bow tiles. We've got hot water and a separate bathtub/shower. No straddling the toilets during my morning shower. That's a relief. (It's not uncommon due to lack of space in Hong Kong, for the bathroom to simply be a shower room. Basically, the door is waterproof, there is a showerhead over the toilet, and you have to pray that you don't soak the toilet paper everytime you shower. It's not pleasant.)

And this is our wonderful, delightful kitchen! It has a two-burner range, a decent-sized refridgerator, a washing machine, a sink with no hot water, and lots and lots of glorious sunlight. I love it!


Well, that's the tour. Hotel Kirkland is open for business. Hope you can all make it to our house-warming party!


(Oh, and the final measurement...drumroll please....about 275 sq. feet. Yowsers!)