The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

It’s been an interesting period in my life – one filled with happiness, frustration, excitement and disappointment – however from a lifestyle point of view, it has been a wonderful experience.

Without doubt, HK is a much more social place than say Singapore.

I always felt the people of the City State had this air of self-importance that manifested into them expecting to be asked out to events rather than doing the asking whereas in HK, the scene is much more social and everyone sort of organises stuff which is why in the first few months, we went out and met more new people than we did in almost 4 years of living in Singapore.

Even though I found the culture, environment and people of HK full of creativity, colour, diversity and entrepreneurship, the ad industry – as I wrote about – was a huge disappointment, though fortunately I met quite a few brilliant people who not only restored my faith in HK creativity and communication [even though ironically, none of us actually worked on any HK clients] … but also stopped me smashing my head against brick walls too often.

When you move countries, where you choose to live becomes very, very important and to say we’re sad to be leaving our apartment is a massive understatement.

In short, we absolutely loved it.

Infact, if it didn’t cost HK$20 million just to own a shoebox, we’d of bought it … but alas our budget doesn’t stretch to property tycoon standards which is why it’s with a heavy heart we say bye … especially as we haven’t actually got a place to move into in Shanghai yet and even when we do, I doubt it’ll have the sort of storage this place had.

Yes, I know talking about storage is very sad but there’s 2 very good reasons why it has so much importance in my life:

1/ I have so many DVD’s, CD’s, Videogames that it’s nice to have a place for them where you don’t have to spend an hour pulling everything out just to find a particular film/song/game that you’ve set your mind on enjoying.

2/ I have a wife who is far more ‘relaxed’ on tidiness than I am – which means there’s enough places for her to ‘store’ her stuff without it taking over the apartment.

[Please note tidiness is not the same as cleanliness … she’s anal on that, she just enjoys being free and easy with where she leaves her things]

Anyway, I will miss the place enormously, especially being able to watch the horse racing from our lounge – which sounds weird, but is a HK tradition. [I mean watching the horse racing is a HK tradition, not watching it from our lounge!]

In our 18 months here, we’ve met some wonderful people … people who will be friends with for a very, very long time including SHOCK HORROR, some clients … and whilst there’s too many to mention [but not as many as the number of cocks I’ve met] I want to say a special thank you to Amber, Kaichin, Sandy, Charles, Linda, Leon, January, Josie, Jessie & Katie who would have made my time here enjoyable just on their own.

[Oh, and even though I knew them before we came – Pat & Juanita deserve a special thanks. If only for me constantly asking them stupid questions!]

So thank you HK, it’s been a fun and memorable ride and whilst I am looking forward to my new adventure, I hope I see you around – especially as I can catch up with the lovely guys who decided to move here just as I was leaving.

Are you listening Jason? Angie? And don’t try saying it was purely coincidental. Bastards.