Elvis has Left the Building

Living and working in the same building rocks. I highly recommend it.

But on the other hand . . .

Last Friday afternoon, I looked up from the stack of papers I was grading, and realized I hadn’t been out of the building since Sunday. For five days straight I had been commuting between our seventh floor apartment and my fourth floor classroom. Annika and Elise as well.

Oops.

I decided that in order for this to work, the girls and I were going to have to make a concerted effort to get out of the building and get some fresh air (well, as fresh as the air gets in Hong Kong).

So everyday this week we have been taking a 5:30 walk while we are waiting for Julie to get off of work. While there is not too much to see in our particular corner of Hong Kong, we have been exploring our neighborhood.

We live in a square mile –more or less- that is bounded on the north and the east by a highway and then some pretty steep mountainous hills. To the south we are hemmed in by a mid-size man-made canal. To the west about a half mile away is a large river.

Inside these little confines are mostly commercial and light industrial buildings and of course our train station. So far in our wanderings, we have found two convenient stores, a bakery, a gas station, and a small restaurant with menus that have neither English nor pictures. A ten-minute walk from our apartment, where the canal meets the big river is the Floating Seafood Restaurant which doesn’t actually float. It’s built on piers in the river. It’s built to look like an old fashioned river boat. It’s huge.

Not much of a neighborhood, but for all its lack of luster, it’s our neighborhood and we are happy to call it home.

Well, Julie’s home, dinner’s done, and a fresh stack of papers is waiting for me.