family moving to hong kong - help!!

Welcome on board justinecl

I hope that other members will bring their input to your vital queries soon.

Regards

good day, i'm sorta naive Hong Konger after spending 3 years living in Australia. living in Kowloon at the moment, and are you thinking of public or international schools in Hong Kong?

Justinecl, I am in Beijing so can not help you with specific information.

I suggest you ask your hubby to check. Most/many companies provide, as part of the relocation packages, for their employees the services of a relocation company / destination service provider.

The same way as they do not expect their employees to find a moving company or find an estate agent they will use this Destination Service Provider to assist you with the school search, house hunting, settling-in services and city orientation.

The companies normally like this solution since the employee settles into his new environment faster and hence is up to speed sooner the the go-it-aloners.

So as not to turn this into an advert for any specific company if he does not have one and needs then private message me and I can give you some contact details.

justinecl wrote:

Hi has anyone lived in Hong Kong or is living in Hong Kong??  We are moving there in a few months for my husbands work and I would appreciate advice on where to live and schools to send kids to??I have a teenage daughter and two younger boys aged 7 and 9.

Out of curiosity have you found a place to live? What is the size of the place? I am living in HK and most of the places here are tiny. JW

Hi,

Good decision!  You'll love HK - it's a great place to live and work.  We moved with our toddler about a year ago and settled in very quickly.

There are a few great areas to live that are really family-friendly with good schools.  I would consider:

- Happy Valley: it's central, very residential with a great mix of locals and expats
- South side (Stanley, Repulse Bay): has a great village-vibe, great international schools, fantastic beaches - can be expensive though.
- Discovery Bay - it's on Lantau so you have to get a ferry to HK island but it's a car-less expat community with a great school - a good option if you want something more affordable and don't want to integrate totally with the local environment.

We live above Happy Valley off Stubbs Road which is great too.  My key bit of advice is to find one or two property agents you like and get them only to show you your exact taste - this avoids the horrible stage where you only get shown grotty places.  I'd be happy to share the agents we dealt with last year who we really liked - just let me know.

Good luck and let me know if I can help you any more.

Dont panic. Hong Kong is one of the most popular, most desirable city for expats in terms of work and living.  It's just very convinient, but very expensive!  Find yourself a place near MTR to live in order to lower your rent, then look for a international school nearby or convinient to reach to for the kid, again, the school fee is very very expensive. about USD25000/annum/kid..., hope your relocation allowance covers this.

Don't be suprised by how small the rooms are in Hong Kong, they're all like that.  It's a small city with too many people. My opinion this is the only negative point of it-small.

We wish to move to Hong Kong to work and live though, unfortunately got sent to bloody Cairo!!!

Well, good luck to you!  Hong Kong is great!

Very true it all depends on what you compare it to. JW

We just moved here with toddler twins - and chose Elements in Kowloon because it is very stroller/kid friendly and not as "detached" as Disco Bay. I would recommend here or anywhere in Tsim Sha Tsui - you get to experience the city with half the bustle of HK island.

Enjoy the challenges and the lively strolls you will be experiencing. JW

rsatdcms wrote:

JWilliamson wrote:

Enjoy the challenges and the lively strolls you will be experiencing. JW

Is that the "copy watch" dig ?

Hello rs, I do not understand what you are meaning to say, sorry. JW

Discovery Bay would be a nice choice.

It has a huge expat community, plus far from the centre of the city.

hi kafkawes!
how are you?
I am currently searching for an available job for me in Hong Kong so I can move to Hong Kong soon. I've been to Hong Kong a couple of times already.

Hello ,I'm searching for any caused job in Hong Kong.like waitress,housekeeping etc..I'm speak English fluently

Hello, we are moving to HK in January. We would like to live in Clear Water Bay, Silverstrand. Is there also expat community? Maybe somebody live in CWB  already?
We would like to move with small dog, but i m not sure if it´s possible?
Pleas give me any information .
Regards

Hi
Yes there is an expat community in CWB (just like pretty much everywhere here). May I ask you why you want to live there if you don't know the city? I would strongly advise you to not decide yourself for any specific location or district before you arrive.

Moving with a small dog is possible, but beware of sanitary/veterinary constraints if you want to avoid a long quarantine.

Many thanks for your reply. We decided to live in CWB beacous it is not so far from work and there is school bus station from Swiss- German School. I would like to live somewhere were is not so many people. I now it seems not possible in HK but Siverstrand looks good.

Hi

Nothing is "far from work" in HK, though I am curious in which area you will work, that is "not far" from Silver Strand.

Yes there is a bus stop, but this option assumes that you accept that your children spend between 45mn and 1 hour in that bus every morning and again on their way back in the afternoon.

There are lots of other places much closer to the GSIS that are very comfortable and isolated: Deep Water Bay, Jardine's Lookout / Mount Butler, Park View, Stubbs Road etc.

I'm not saying that Silverstrand is a bad idea, just that you should keep your eyes open for other options for there are many.


If you are open for professional help (that will save you a lot of time and money) don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Many thanks for your help. I will check this places. Best regards