We moved into our office just over a month ago and finally felt that we were set up enough to host an office opening party last Friday.  This is a tradition here in Hong Kong (and other parts of Asia), complete with a “usual” flower arrangement given as a gift to the new company.  The picture here is myself standing with Bill and Erica at the end of the party amidst the flowers that we received.  You can see more photos in our office-related gallery or more about the company here.

We had a great time talking with friends that we have made from Hong Kong and China through work and and outside. We also had the opportunity to meet more of our neighbors around Science Park. If you’re in the area and didn’t make it on Friday, please get in touch and drop by the office soon.

We’ve just added pictures to our gallery from our Sunday hike along the Maclehose Trail in Sai Kung East Country Park.  We completed about two thirds of Stage 1, which runs from Pak Tam Chung to Long Ke.  Exhausted from the heat and running low on water, we took a detour to a small village of Pak A and stumbled onto a cute waterfront restaurant called Jaspas.  After eating and drinking our fill, we hiked back to the trail and were able to catch a taxi back to town (where else can you do that but Hong Kong).  Check out the pictures here and find out what the ants ate for lunch!

Here are a few interesting facts about Hong Kong:

• Less than 25% of the land in Hong Kong is developed -  that means there are lots of nature reserves and country parks for us to explore (and steep slopes that they haven’t figured out how to build on yet)!  Many of the trails can be reached using public transportation.  We actually grabbed a taxi after our hike today!
• Hong Kong is made up of 262 islands - apparently this number varies because of the country’s reclamation efforts.  We’re taking advantage of this by trying out different beaches this summer.
• 30% of Hong Kong lives in public housing - it’s amazing how your perspective gets skewed after looking at all those gorgeous luxury apartments online.
• Hong Kong is one of the few cities with a salt water system- 75% of the population uses salt water toilets!  The only noticeable difference is that sand accumulates in the tank over time.

As we learn more, we’ll add them here!

We just passed the two month mark in our apartment.  Since we were basically nomads from December to May, I’ve been doing some serious nesting.  I’ve been gathering pictures for inspiration, scouring the online classifieds for furniture, and reading Apartment Therapy religiously.  There is a popular site called asiaXPAT that has a very active classifieds section (no one uses craigslist here).  Buying furniture from this site has actually helped us learn a lot about Hong Kong neighborhoods, and how to direct van drivers to our apartment from just about anywhere!

Here you can hire vans to transport bulky items just like you would a taxi.  You call a dispatcher and they find the closest available van to you and you’re all set.  So far, a company called Sing Kee has been the most consistent.  We rarely have to wait more than 15 min!  Another thing that really makes decorating fun here is the fabric market in Sham Shui Po.  It has street after street of great materials to choose from.  My favorite place right now is Grand Spread on Tai Nan Street - which is where I bought the fabric for the bedroom throw pillows and kitchen curtain.  Last but not least, there’s Muji!  They have some really well designed products for organizing and storing pretty much anything.

In our gallery are pictures of our progress.  I also included image boards like the one above that show our inspiration - what we hope the apartment will look like when we’re done!  We’re definitely open to suggestions, since we don’t have it all figured out yet.

Finally we’ve had some clear days to take good pictures of the office.  This June Hong Kong had the most rainfall (and least sunshine) on record!  It looks like we’re on track to break these records for July as well.  Fortunately, we always have our cameras ready and were able to snap a few shots before the clouds rolled back in.

For those of you that don’t know, we were accepted into the Incu-tech program at Hong Kong Science Park.  The campus is located on Tolo Harbor in Shatin, which is part of the New Territories.  It’s about a 30 min commute door-to-door from our apartment (10 min walking, 10 min train, 10 min mini-bus).  There are plenty of amenities on site - a fitness center (only 150 HKD per month), coffee shops, convenience store, restaurants, and even a bike path that runs along the water.  Although pretty much anything you do in Hong Kong requires a mound of paperwork (and HKSTP is no exception), it was well worth the effort!

We’ve added a bunch of office pictures to our gallery here, and we’ll add more as we continue to decorate.  Hopefully with this virtual tour we can entice you to come see it in person!

We had curtains for the bedroom made in China last week and are expecting them to be delivered in the next few hours.  I decided to prepare by taking down the old curtain track on the bedroom ceiling so that I can put the new one up.  There were a half dozen metal brackets screwed into the ceiling holding the track in place, but one of them had fallen out before we moved in.

I went to take the rest of them down this and all but one just came out of the ceiling into my hand with almost no effort.  We were worried that the ceiling might be soft from rain and wouldn’t support the new curtains, but that wasn’t the case.  As you can see in the picture, they drilled holes much too big for the screws and mollies that were used to put them up, so they just wrapped it with toilet paper and put it up!  I’m amazed now that they haven’t fallen on us during the night in the last two months.

We’ve just finished our first day in the new office in Hong Kong.  The picture here is my celebrating the office opening with a pint of draught Guinness at the pub downstairs from the office, which is certainly an exciting find.  There are more photos of the office in our gallery and we’ll take additional ones when we have a full sunny day.

I’m quite excited to say that the office of Intuitive Automata Hong Kong Limited is now open in Science Park!  Please come and visit — we’d love to have guests.

Today was mostly trying to figure out the office layout and what we need to get started.  We moved in a few pieces of furniture yesterday (pedestals and lateral files, one chair, a bookshelf) and will get some desks tomorrow.  Hopefully by Monday we’ll have enough furniture to get to work and can collect a few more pieces as we need them.

Back to work now — we’ve got robots to build!

We’re really enjoying our neighborhood and wanted to share some pictures with everyone.  As we’ve mentioned, our street is known for its pet shops.  There are also a bunch of pet clothing stores!  Puppy Garden (first picture on the left) is one of the cutest.  The other thing our street is known for is this restaurant (second picture from the left).  They make a famous chicken and rice dish and there is often a line outside of people waiting to enjoy it.  I’ve even had a cab driver get out of his cab after dropping me off to point it out!

The right two photos show the range of clothing boutiques in the neighborhood.  The first one is actually the entrance to our building!  Cory has to duck under these hanging clothes when we go out on Sundays :].  Joe Boutique always has something great in the window and they must change the mannequins daily.

Best Baker is probably our favorite neighborhood bakery.  They have great baguettes and yummy, crumbly walnut cookies that are perfect as an afternoon pick-me-up.  In contrast to the more polished stores, there are also some older shops that are just packed with stuff.  This hardware store is a great example (second picture from the left).  Foodwell is an Italian gourmet shop.  We were thrilled to find out that we’d have a place to buy capers and pesto nearby!  Last but not least is DCH Food Mart, which has a great selection of vegetarian fake meats and Spanish table wine for 13.50 HKD a bottle (1.70 USD)!

We finally found the energy to deal with our 2-in-1 washer/dryer. A friend of ours contacted a appliance repairman on our behalf and arranged for the repairman to come to our apartment today. Here an inspection is only 50 HKD (about 6.50 USD), so it was certainly worth a shot! He closed the latch on the drum on the first try (something we had no success with) and started the washer without any problems. As Cory and I moved things out of the way for the impending flood, the repairman was testing out the different washer settings.

After about 10 minutes of normal washing machine sounds and not a drop of leaking water, we looked at each other and began to laugh. We opened up the washer and he showed us how to successfully close the latch on the drum. Then he charged us an additional 150 HKD for “fixing” the machine.  We were so thrilled that our luck had changed that we happily handed over the money.

There are a number of entertaining stories we can share about furnishing our new apartment. Some of them we can laugh at immediately, and some need time and distance for us to finally find them funny. This story is one of the latter. After tracking sales of used appliances on a local site for weeks, we finally spotted a 2-in-1 washer/dryer that would fit in our place. It was on sale for a fraction of the original price because the owners were renovating. I actually watched them do laundry in the machine to make sure that it was working properly before we agreed to the sale.

When we went to pick it up, Cory realized how heavy it was and started to laugh (knowing he would have to carry it up 4 flights of stairs). We got it into a van and headed towards home. The steep hills and bumpy roads on Hong Kong island made the unit rock in the back of the van, which made us very nervous. When the van finally made it down to the tunnel and across to Kowloon, we were relieved.

On the last turn before reaching our street, the driver slammed on the breaks to avoid a pedestrian (which never happens here). The unit fell on its side, slid all the way towards the front of the van and rammed into the back of the passenger seats. The driver immediately pulled over and Cory jumped out to inspect the damage. The covering had snapped off and most of the buttons appeared to be broken. Infuriated, we began arguing with the driver and he reluctantly handed over what we had paid for the unit (which was all the cash he had in his wallet).

Cory carried the washer to the ground floor of our building as the driver sped away. With a few simple tools, we were able to pop the buttons back into place and fix the cover. We were thrilled! Of course, we wouldn’t be able to test the unit unless we got it into the apartment and hooked it up. After 45 minutes of Cory carrying the unit up stair by stair (and me spotting and supporting his back from behind), we were too mentally and physically exhausted to test it out.

The following morning we hooked it up and started a small load, flooding our bathroom in the process. Inspection by a repairman is only 50 HKD, but we haven’t had the energy to deal with it yet. Right now it makes a great shelf.