Six months on

2nd February, was the half year anniversary of our arrival in Hong Kong. On August 1st I left London with our four children and flew to Hong Kong to be reunited with the Pioneering Accountant. In my naïve way, I imagined we’d be settled and sorted by the end of September.

So, six months down the line, how do I feel about my new home? I’m not sure I’m really ready to call it home. In fact I constantly have the feeling I’m sitting on someone else’s furniture and rather wish we’d bought more of our own stuff rather than putting it into storage. But would being surrounded by my UK clutter mean I felt more at home in HK?

Both the Pioneering Accountant and I have already registered that we do not want to spend the rest of our lives here. It’s an adventure, one we sought out and welcomed, and one we are prepared to make the most of for as long as it lasts. And whilst I fully recognise the potential for having a good time while we’re here, for meeting many interesting people and doing some fascinating things, I find I have not yet fallen completely in love with the place.

Hong Kong is not a place for the faint hearted. Despite unusually comfortable levels of home help, short commuting times, good weather and an outdoorsy life, it is also a harsh, urban, unforgiving sort of existence. It’s relentlessly commercial, loud, busy, ugly and alien in many ways to an English girl, even a relatively well-travelled one. And yet, it sort of gets under your skin and I have to admit, somewhat reluctantly, that I actually do quite like it here.

There are things I still miss from my old life in London: I miss walking the children to school and doing my local errands on foot. I miss London’s wonderful array of art galleries, opera, theatre, ballet and exhibitions. I miss going up to town on the 22 bus and shopping on the King’s Road. I miss our weekend bike rides along the Thames and through Richmond Park.

There is a growing list of things I no longer find odd or surprising in Hong Kong. Perhaps this means I’m getting used to life here. Perhaps these will be the things I miss when we eventually go home to London:

crowds and crowds of people
mobiles that work in the underground
public health announcements on TV
not being able to read the signs
Hello Kitty on everything
young women in head-to-toe Louis Vuitton
talking about Nancy Kissel
not being understood
being elbowed aside in a queue
calling relative strangers my new friends
Dim Sum
double layers of packaging on everything from loo rolls to biscuits
cockroaches
smog
fur coats
clean cars
the sound of a jack-hammer
bamboo scaffolding
shanty towns and skyscrapers
and last, but not least, ironed knickers.