New Place: the Move has Begun!

There are few things worse in the world than moving.  Aside from a good excuse to throw out stuff, there is little benefit to the act itself.  I don't mind changing homes, but I can't say I like moving.

I heard once that the average American moves like 20 times in their life (whereas the average japanese person moves about 2-3: basically - parents house til you're married, then your own place til you die). 

家を引越しするとても不便です。日本に住んでいるとき面白い事を聞きました：普通アメリカ人全人生中に20回ぐらい家を引越しする。普通日本人は二、三回だけ引越しする。あなたは何回引越しした？今まで僕はも10回引越し。僕は人生半分終わった！？66歳死にますか？

By my count, my new is place #10 for me so far... so either I'm going to start slowing down or I'm going to die by 66. :-P

In case you missed this blog,  I am moving to this new place in Hong Hom:

僕は今新家まで引越し：

Its a 1 bedroom service apartment near the train station.  I got the keys last thursday and so far i've taken two loads of stuff down...  Here are some of the pics I took inside the last few days. １LDKのホンハムアパートです。先週木曜日鍵をもらった。も二個荷物持て行った。僕は撮ったの写真：

Swanky lobby.  Its a pretty new building (finished only like 6 months ago I think),  and they did a good job on the styling... it looks elegant at least, even if its not all that quality.

ロービーです。綺麗ですか？

My unit is not too bad, its about 500 sq feet,  which isn't as big as my current place, but much bigger than my last few places in the US and almost as big as my place in Japan (yes,  i had a bigger apartment in Japan than I had the US or HK!)

僕のアパート～47m^2です。アメリカよりアパート大きいけど、福岡のアパートより小さいよ！

There was a tenant here before, who left it a total mess, but they managed to clean almost everything.    I still haven't figured out how to turn on the light and fan above the stove top... there's no switch anywhere!

Living room is nice too:

There's a glass dining table for four and a small bedroom w/ a double bed on the right.

This is the most important area of course... Very happy with the 32" flatscreen that comes included in the place.  For some reason they include a DVD player too. 　テレビすごいよ！

The framed James Tiberius Kirk photo didn't come with the place by the way.

Although I didn't get a high floor, and about 500 hotel rooms can look directly into my living room,  the view isn't too bad, I get a bit of HK harbor! 　　景色如何ですか？香港島一寸見えますよ！

Tonight I met up with my Japanese friend Nail-Art-Chan.  I showed her the place and took her down to see the building's recreation facilities.  I had never really checked them out, so it was a first for me too　今日ナールアートちゃんと会った。アパート連れて見せてしました。プール見せました：

Its a bit hard to see, but thats the swimming pool in the foreground.  It faces another service apartment building owned by the same company that made mine, but you can see the bay a bit from here too.

There's a nice 'club' area which has a gym, free computers and a kids playground:

ジームも行って：

I might have to start working out here, now that I'm moving away from bicycle friendly territory.

無料パソコンと子供所もある。ケーム屋とシネーマ屋もある。でも9までだけ。早過ぎ！

They also have a game room you can rent here and a private theater.  I think you have to reserve them in advance and it costs a few bucks per hour,  but its not too bad.  the only problem is the place closes at 9pm, so no late night poker games maybe. :-(

But there's one more thing which is pretty awesome:

FREE massage chairs... there's like 5 or 6 of them...   I should bring my laptop (or DS) down here and relax (every day!)...

最後は一番良い。。。無料マッサジ5席が有る。すごい！毎日来たい！