一山还有一山高

The skewed emphasis developers here put on building villas has resulted in an acute shortage of apartments for couples and expat populations such as W and myself. As a response to market demand, many villas are partitioned into apartment sized residences and rented out.

We have just moved into one of these "apartments". W was the one who sealed the deal. He had to do so quickly as residences the size of apartments are hot cakes. If you do not say yes on the spot, it'll be gone by the next phone call to the agent.

I have not seen the apartment prior to moving in, but I was not really flustered about it. I thought I was ready for any kind of residence having been baptized into the realm of teeny weeny apartment living in HK. I thought I was ready for any kind of renovation/building misadventures having had a contractor, who does not know what a built-in oven is, renovate my Shenzhen flat.

But, as the chinese saying goes, "一山还有一山高”. i.e. For any mountain there is always another mountain higher than it.

Lets start with plumbing.

I have to say I am thankful for the running water and flushing toilet. However, the kitchen sink and its associated drainage system put me into a catch22 situation. A high rate of wastewater flow from the sink means water gurgles out of the floor trap. A low rate of flow (i.e. half plugging the sink to slow down the water) solves the water fountain problem but the sink leaks profusely because the water now has more time to seep through.

I admit I am confused by the assembly at the bottom of the sink. The usual sturdy looking PVC pipes and traps are replaced by a very large black rubber washer-like element and a translucent flexible plastic hose-like element through which water flows to the floor trap. This innovative construction clearly does not work.

If my assessment is correct, all kitchen wastewater enters the kitchen floor trap and flows toward the bathroom floor trap before being expelled. I suspect there is not much of a gradient (if any) between the kitchen trap and the bathroom trap, resulting in a backflow and hence a water feature at the node. This is a retrofitted bedroom after all, the kitchen trap was not there before.

I shuddered at the thought of washing fish, meat and all other perishables in the sink, and having their essences ending up on my floor. Wonder if Carrefour sells industrial sized Detol, I'd probably need it everytime I cook to clean the floor.

Talking about cooking.

The kitchen in teeny. The cooktop sits right next to the fridge. Einstein must have come up with this wonderful kitchen design to test the fire retardation and heat insulation properties of the powdercoated fridge skin. The solution here is to move the fridge into the living room or I'd be living off cup noodles for the rest of my tenure. I have half a mind to put a board on top of the stove and buy an electric hot plate instead. That way, the landlord can pay for the electricity (included in the rent), while I do not have the problem of calling for gas when the gas tank runs out because we do not really have an address.

This is a sub-divided villa. The villa has an address but not the "apartments" in it. There are no apartment numbers, so how will the gas guy find me? Due to this funny yet extremely prevalent situation, dwellers like myself do not have a postal address, and need to apply for a P.O. box in order to receive correspondence.

A subdivided villa also means some basic infrastructure of modern apartment living is missing. I looked everywhere but I could not find a phone socket, and neither did I see a TV signal socket. I decided to be a Wifi criminal and tried to find wireless signal, but none could be found in the area. Am I to believe that no-one in my neighbourhood owns a router?

The combination of excitement and disbelief is yet to wear off as yet another evening draws near. Sitting in an internet café, I ponder over the logic of local space planning. That the bedroom is 2.5 times an average HK bedroom, the living room is 2 times an average HK living room, the bathroom is 3 times an average HK bathroom, and the above mentioned kitchen is 0.5 times the size of an average HK kitchen. The rental price of this property? About 9,000 UAE dirhams a month. i.e. HKD 18,000, SGD 3,600. This is actually quite cheap by Abu Dhabi standards. Sigh...