Moneeeeeeey!

Finally! It's been quite the process, but all the steps to me becoming a Hong Kong resident are almost complete! Today I got my bankcard! Woohoo! I feel like a normal person now. I signed up for my account last week on Monday, but it was a 7 day waiting period to get my card. They don't give temp cards at HSBC for some assinine reason. So I was left without access to my money in the account (which I used to open it with) for about a week, unless I wanted to wait in crazy long lineups at the teller to do it manually (gah manually). I had a nice little chat with one Chinese teller who didn't realize I had just opened the account, and she was trying to charge me money for withdrawing funds. With my account, everything is free service, except going to the teller. But I had no card to do it at the machine! It took awhile to explain all this, but eventually the fee was waived. No worry, I now have my bankcard, it's nice and silver.

You may have noticed I said all steps are 'almost' done. Pretty much everything I need to get around here, is now done. I have a cellphone, picked that up about 1 week ago as well. It's a nice Nokia with pretty much no features, but I figured out how to download a program and hack into my phone so I can program the MP3 rings. (It doesn't have an audio player, but plays MP3's for ringtones) Figure that one out. A cell/mobile is a must here. Even if you're only here for 1 week I 'd recommend it. It baffles me how I managed almost 3 months without one. So back to the almost. I still need/should get a credit card. There a few things/bills that would be easier with a card, plus I get a free gift like an Ipod shuffle so it's worth it. Also the HSBC internet banking siter is pretty awesome. I'd say it's even better than TD's, and it's pretty good Canada wise.