chuychanga
500+ Posts
HorninHongKong or any others,
I'm going to HKG for a job interview in June. If I'm offered the job I'd stay in the U.S. for the first few years but would eventually have the opportunity to move to Hong Kong for a year or two sometime down the road.
I'm bringing my wife on the interview trip and arriving a couple of days early so we can look around and decide if we do indeed want to move there eventually. If we decide we never want to live there I will not take the job. But we are both open-mined and excited about exposing our kids to another culture for a year or two. That's about the longest we'd be staying there, eventually coming back to the states for good.
Here's the background info. We are mid-30's with a two year-old and another on the way. It would be a minimum of four years from now before we would move there. So my oldest would be 6 and my youngest would be about 3.
We are not too interested in the excitement of the nightlife. We are very concerned about the pollution and it's affect on our kids. The comapny would be paying a housing allowance of about $48,000 HKD per month. The company will also cover tuition at an English Foundation School for the kids. I'm not yet sure where those schools are located.
We would like to live in a nice condo or house near the beach and near other outdoor activities, parks, trails, etc... We prefer a place that costs no more than the company allowance. The housing allowance is good for either a mortgage or rent. My guess is that we'd probably just rent since I don't know much about the real estate market there. We would like to avoid buying a car over there. I'd need to commute to the airport once or twice a week, but I'm willing to deal with a crappy commute if it means putting my kids in a better place near fun outdoor stuff.
I understand that there's a large expat colony in Discovery Bay and I call tell you that I probably want to stay away from that. I'm told that it's too Westernized and that kind of defeats the purpose of moving there in the first place. I'm also told that DB has too many of my future co-workers and their families living there in close quarters with all the soap operas and drama that goes with that, and also that the pollution there is the worst in HKG.
A friend recommended Sai Kung.or somwhere else in the Eastern side of the New Territories. We'll probably start out there.
We'll have about two days to look around. What else should we see in order to decide if it's the right move for us?
I'm going to HKG for a job interview in June. If I'm offered the job I'd stay in the U.S. for the first few years but would eventually have the opportunity to move to Hong Kong for a year or two sometime down the road.
I'm bringing my wife on the interview trip and arriving a couple of days early so we can look around and decide if we do indeed want to move there eventually. If we decide we never want to live there I will not take the job. But we are both open-mined and excited about exposing our kids to another culture for a year or two. That's about the longest we'd be staying there, eventually coming back to the states for good.
Here's the background info. We are mid-30's with a two year-old and another on the way. It would be a minimum of four years from now before we would move there. So my oldest would be 6 and my youngest would be about 3.
We are not too interested in the excitement of the nightlife. We are very concerned about the pollution and it's affect on our kids. The comapny would be paying a housing allowance of about $48,000 HKD per month. The company will also cover tuition at an English Foundation School for the kids. I'm not yet sure where those schools are located.
We would like to live in a nice condo or house near the beach and near other outdoor activities, parks, trails, etc... We prefer a place that costs no more than the company allowance. The housing allowance is good for either a mortgage or rent. My guess is that we'd probably just rent since I don't know much about the real estate market there. We would like to avoid buying a car over there. I'd need to commute to the airport once or twice a week, but I'm willing to deal with a crappy commute if it means putting my kids in a better place near fun outdoor stuff.
I understand that there's a large expat colony in Discovery Bay and I call tell you that I probably want to stay away from that. I'm told that it's too Westernized and that kind of defeats the purpose of moving there in the first place. I'm also told that DB has too many of my future co-workers and their families living there in close quarters with all the soap operas and drama that goes with that, and also that the pollution there is the worst in HKG.
A friend recommended Sai Kung.or somwhere else in the Eastern side of the New Territories. We'll probably start out there.
We'll have about two days to look around. What else should we see in order to decide if it's the right move for us?
