Moving alone in HK

[shri]

ummm, dare I ask, WTH are you doing hanging around Happy Valley in the afternoons?

Nothing to with quotes for intimacy.

[jgl]

Nothing to with quotes for intimacy.

Surely you could write an app for some niche market there...

[Mat]

French expats can only live in Sheung Wan.

bargfeldstegen expat can only like in cuckoo land.

[goodluckduck]

Frankly, I don't think HKD$12k/month can get you anything, AT ALL, on the HK island. Rent at the Kennedy Town area is not that cheap, especially since its MTR station was commissioned in late 2014.

If you insist to rent for HKD$12k/month on the HK island, I would say you will be lucky if you can get something that is more than 300 square feet and less than 50 years old.

A more realistic budget would be HKD$20k/month as suggested earlier, for a "decent size" apartment for one person.

And yes, you can live quite lavishly with a HKD$58k/month income. Average salary for local people is less than HKD$15.5k/month so go figure.

Disagree with this. I have a 500sq ft 2 bed in ktown that's in a new building (and probably more than I need as a single guy to be honest) and I pay 22k. I have a friend who has a really nice studio of about 450sq ft in Happy Valley for 15.5k and another guy has an ok place in Wanch for around the same. 15k is a perfectly reasonable target for a single person on the island IMO.

[Natfixit]

If the OP is working for Natixis ( working on assumption here), why not live in areas like Lai King, Lai Chi Kok, Ho Man Tin? A mix of expats live in these area, good transport links, local to supermarkets, noisy but not as noisy and close but not too close to the office. Rents ok. within budget.

[Bob Loblaw]

Interesting enough, local HK people, like yours truly, find SSP a dangerous place to live in.

There are more and more southeastern indians and africans assembling in that area, "around the clock", and I don't mean to discriminate, .

at the risk of piling on... discriminating is *exactly* what you mean to do there. you think it's dangerous because there are "southeastern indians" (is that even what you mean?) and "africans" there. who aren't "assembling" there, btw, they live there.

i do think that many locals share your prejudice, FWIW.


i will give one word of warning about SSP though: there's an old woman who picks through the market trash there around 5-6 in the morning. her dog is mean and barks at runners. you can make of that what you will.

[aguan]

Agreed. I just moved out of my apartment of 4 years and was paying $10,500 in Central for a 300 sq ft studio. Was very comfortable for one persona and never felt cramped for space.

[blackwings]

I don't know. I know a single British lady who's been living in Fanling for over a decade now. Never seems to have a problem.

Had a Aussie friend who worked in Yuen Long as an English tutor. Not sure if it is considered Northern NT but NT anyways. She got harassed by two scumbags (they are not chinese or locals) and was fortunately helped by a group of passing Hkers. She came back crying.

[blackwings]

Interesting enough, local HK people, like yours truly, find SSP a dangerous place to live in.


I walk around SSP at night all the time, I like visiting industrial and ex-industrial areas full of interesting sights.

I also find, and this is not supposed to single you out explicitly, that HK people have really crazy perspectives when it comes to personal risk. e.g. they will think that drinking tap water will poison you (can of worms there) or that turning off the AC in the middle of winter time will cause a flu pandemic, but at the same time hold the view that there is no point to wearing safety belts when sitting in the back of a taxi. Or that keeping passport, cash and jewelry in a permanent gym locker is a sensible security policy (this is a reference to California Fitness closing down a while back)

Organised (and probably disorganised, opportunistic) crime is probably more likely to avoid the obvious Westerner, but I look local and quite happily walk around SSP. More plausibly 'dangerous' places to be would be something like the Kwun Tong area at night- much fewer people around, but the MNC office workers leaving to get to the MTR late at night by themselves. But again, I have walked that neighborhood late with zero feelings of danger.

Perhaps it's a matter of perspective. I've walked around some of the rougher drug infested neighborhoods London, and pre-gentrification Harlem where stripped cars were part of the scenery, so anything in HK seems safe by comparison.

And, and I have forgotten to mention the local drug addicts and those "really poor" old people who live there for the whole of their lives in SSP.

Hang on, WTF are you talking about here. Are you saying people on methadone and really old poor people are dangerous? Or that they just make you feel uncomfortable? In my limited experience, people on methadone are the sad, harmless dregs of society that can be pushed around by anyone. The old homless folks who live under the flyovers there stick to themselves, they want no trouble and are grateful for a bit of free food now and then. These are people to be pitied, not feared.

The only crime of concern in Sham Shui Po is just pick pocketing in crowded areas. Otherwise it is okay. I came back alive from several forays there even at night. Alone.