Shrouded Car Beneath a Favorite TreeEvery morning that there's not a typhoon or the sun isn't baking the balcony at 6am, we're sitting out with tea and coffee and watching the birds and looking at this tree.
You might like a little background on the building you're seeing here:
Because of Hong Kong building regulations, homes in the New Territories -- by far the largest part of Hong Kong -- are invariably three-story flats (apartments) of 700 square feet per floor.
These are subdivided in a variety of creative ways:
- One home of three floors (2100 square feet), plus a 700-square-foot roof.
- Two homes -- one of ground and first floor (1400 square feet); one of top floor and roof (700 + 700).
- Three homes -- ground floor (700), first floor (700), and second floor and roof (700 +700).
- Six homes -- Two 350-square-foot flats on each floor, with the two on the top floor having half a roof each.
No carports or garages are included in that, as you can see from the photo. Rentals vary, of course, but a typical ground-and-first-floor flat -- 1400 square feet plus a little bit of yard -- rents for about US$2000 per month. It may sound expensive (because it is), but it's much less than what we were paying in 1997.
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