seeing friends

After leaving _thaca, I've been getting back in touch with a lot of old friends! In the two months I've been here, I've had THREE visitors go through the country. Two stayed with me and I walked around with the third friend for the past two days. Even though I'm still trying to find my feet socially, I haven't really felt lonely--thanks also to an old college friend who is local here.

But Friend R who was in town the past few days observed that this city is a hard one on me. The income disparity here is very striking, more so than LA because well, everything's so densely packed here, you can hardly avoid it! And I think I feel it more here because I'm actually meeting wealthy ppl who are about my age (friends of friends). I know that there is immense wealth in LA too but well, those folks seemed to be a different species altogether. But now, it's different. The folks I'm meeting here are . . . . kind of like me. But they're rich. Most of them were also born into wealthy families to begin with but they are also making their own way now. R's friend made $140,000 in 3 months just from buying and selling an apt (that's outside his regular job as one of the top honchos at a financial consulting firm). That's about 2-3 times the annual salary of a young academic!

R knew before I did how much this knowledge is now a shock to my system. I make more now and I've been spending more too, but I also feel poorer as well. Isn't that ironic?

Gone are the days of cheap gym memberships and badminton clubs. :) Now I have to pay more for less. Of course, it's still great that I've finally found a couple of places where I can play even though the level of play is not very high. One group plays on sat nights and the other on Sun nights. Not ideal, but do-able. I've had to go to a chiropractor twice here but it's not covered by health insurance, boo. Sitting in my office chair makes my back sore even though my work station is already ergonomic. The pollution and weather here in HK is playing havoc with my skin so I just signed up for facial sessions. They aren't expensive by US standards but well, I could get by without facials when I was there. Food is a bit cheaper here but then again, I cooked simple, nutritious food when I was in the US and that was affordable. I've been too lazy to cook here so I've been eating out more. Need to get back to cooking for myself!! Clothes and shoes are more expensive here and it's been taking me a long time to figure out where to shop. I'm still looking. I may try to wait for my next trip home to shop for clothes.

Life isn't bad but R figured out that being in crowds makes both of us tired (bingo!). Still struggling to wake up in the morning to get work done. It's worrying me a bit.