At Home Group

I love the location of the apartment that Matt and I live in. We live on the 19th floor so I sort of feel like I am in a really high tree house or something. our living room and both of the bedrooms have big windows and the bedroom windows have these nice little alcoves where you can sit or put plants. Being so high off the ground makes for a very peaceful, secluded feeling in our apartment. From the window, you can see the skyline of Central and you can see all of the trees and the flamingoes at the Hong Kong Zoo and Botanical Gardens. Also, you there are two other giant buildings right next to us. One of the buildings houses the YWCA, and we can look down on their pool and watch all of the kids taking their swimming lessons. The other building has some kind of toy factory or clothing manufacturer or something like that. They work very late hours in that building and I always see a short Chinese woman with a tape measure around her neck standing by the window hard at work, cutting fabric. There are two signs in the window directly across from us: one says "Educational Toys" and the other says "Children's Book Club, 16/F Coda Plaza." Maybe the woman in the window is making toys? I am not sure, but she has a huge clothing rack behind her while she works.

The nice thing about living right next door to the YWCA is that there is an english speaking members department on the third floor. I signed up for the "At Home Group" for new arrivals to Hong Kong and my first day was yesterday. I met alot of other expat wives and girlfriends and it was very interesting hearing what their experiences were. It seemed like alot of the were "serial expats", as in they had been posted in several locations outside of their home country. They were giving me advice on how I should be managing my maids. Ha! Pretty hilarious. I am meeting up with some of them on Thursday for lunch at the Fringe Club, so that should be fun. Matt and I are also going to take a Cantonese class at the Y.