Hii y’all! In 2018, I finally left Hong Kong, a place infamous for its high real-estate prices and crowded living environments. I’m really grateful for the time I got to live with dad, then my cousin, in university, but I was actually stoked when I got to rent my own subdivided flat! Weird eh!?

What are subdivided flats?

Subdivided flats are, literally, an apartment partitioned and rented out as separate rooms or suites. Original walls are removed and rebuilt, pipes and drainage systems are altered, and new kitchen and toilets are installed. What once only supported 1 family now needs to support 2 or sometimes 4 or 5 families.

Despite varying safety and hygiene standards, these units are often useful for fresh graduates and low income families who do not qualify for public or government subsidized housing but can not afford private housing, because while the monthly rent for an average one bedroom flat is around $16k, a subdivided flat can go as low as $3k.

In some older districts, such as sham shui po, these subdivided flats are cages and bunk beds.

Why I rented a subdivided flat?

I wanted the experience.

I worked in Chai Wan, the end station on eastern district on Hong Kong island, while my family home was in New Territories, which is located on north western area on Kowloon. This meant I had to travel at least 1.5 hour by bus then mtr then minibus to work, not to mention I needed to arrive early and change into my uniform. So because of all the weird shift hours, I wanted a place closer, but not so close that I felt I was living at work.

My first choice was Causeway Bay! I mean, wow, the retail center of Hong Kong, just imagine all the shopping I could do after work! And there was interesting options which almost made the cut there, except there’ll be no windows and felt really stuffy, or no washing machine, or it’ll be an open shower. A lot of better places were snatched up really quickly.

So what did I rent?

I ended up renting this apartment in Fortress Hill. It’s about 25 to 30 minute walk to Causeway Bay, but 5 minutes by MTR. Our apartment was within 2 minute walking distance to the Fortress Hill mtr station. Like most buildings, it has its own 24 hour security guard, whom I thought was very friendly and professional; he remembered and greeted almost all the inhabitants and visitors.

This apartment was divided into 4 units, 2 which had street facing windows, and 2 which were so small, they barely had a one person standing space from the front door to the bed. Although I didn’t get to see the other larger unit, the two smaller units were still free, and I was quite appalled by the lack of floor space. In comparison, my unit was much better.

Upon entering the door, is a little 3 step long hallway where we change our outdoor shoes to home slippers. Occasionally, it’s our storage space for luggages after coming back from a trip.

Immediately facing the front door is the washroom. There’s no storage space for soaps and shampoo, so we hung a basket to hold all that. I felt the water heater was insufficient, because water would get cold quite quickly during a shower in winter, despite having it on for a while. There’s a full length mirror on the door, but not too useful because of the wall and the door doesn’t open all the way. That’s because there’s a step here, which is weird, but I think it’s where all the pipes drain into from the other rooms. The furnishings are minimalistic, there’s a fold out table and foldable chair, a small flat screen TV, cable box and remote. The closet is, terribly insufficient, but then again, living in a small space means downsizing, and realizing what was my bare essentials was an interesting self discovery process I had while living here. The bed was quite big and comfortable, and the mattress is new, I think.

What sealed the deal on this apartment is the large window. Although you mainly get an amazing view of that building opposite, it did let some sunlight in, and the small windows on either side can open for fresh air. I actually enjoyed watching the streets from this height.

What I disliked about this apartment was this big black sofa seat, which while it was rarely used, it took up a major block of space. I basically used it as a bedside table.

The kitchen unit faces the bed, with a tiny sink and an electric stove, which stopped working and the landlady refused to fix or replace it. There’s a tiny fridge on the top, but there’s no freezer section so you can’t keep meats there for long. There’s a storage cupboard on top which we keep food and snacks. The cupboard on the bottom is for cleaning supplies, toilet paper etc. And there’s a washing machine! And we bought a pole which barely balanced from one end to another to hang out clothes to dry. Occasionally it’ll come crashing down in the middle of the night.

And now we’re back at the door. I couldn’t get in one day and we had to have the hinges chipped back, because the wood expanded when our neighbors water boiler was leaking and they didn’t want to fix it, and our landlady didn’t wanna replace the door.

The surrounding

The building is located right on a major street, King’s Road.

There’s a lot of restaurants next door and the next two blocks nearby. Thankfully there aren’t any rats or insects in our room!

The street behind us is Electric Road, and this is AIA Centre. On the ground floor is Pret a Manger, my favorite place for lunch before a PM shift, because of its hot soup and sandwiches. Next to there is Aroma Bakery, a second Starbucks, Genki sushi, and SimplyLife Cafe.

Another street down is Harbour Grand Hotel. And today’s lunch is right opposite at 萬興腩雜專家 (地址：炮台山油街11-13號地舖)

It has a traditional open kitchen with various meats hanging up, but it’s also very clean and tidy. The soup noodles was really tasty and so was the wonton noodle. The bill came to around $106.

The restaurant isn’t too big, but it’s clean and comfortable.

Another eatery i had often was Super Sandwiches, which has nice portion size for me.

Back on Kings Road, there’s also Gong cha bubble tea, 譚仔雲南米線 known for its spicy noodle soup, Hot Star fried chicken, Ying Lok restaurant 營樂餐廳 has some nice home made dishes.

Besides the very busy crossing, there’s also a covered walkway, which is couple steps from my building and leads almost right next to mtr. This means even when I forget my umbrella, I can still get to and from home.

Besides being close to the MTR station, there’s also a lot of bus routes and tramways. On my days off, i love taking the tram to Causeway Bay and back. Not only is it much cheaper than bus or MTR, it’s also more airy compared to enclosed air conditioning of buses. But most of all, because it travels slightly slower, it’s a great way to catch Pokemon on the go!

To be fair, I rarely take buses because of the traffic and because the train system in Hong Kong is so efficient.

Slightly further east, is North Point, which is one of the earlier developed districts in Hong Kong.

There’s some gyms (er, real gyms) here which I thought about joining for a hefty sum, but never got around to it.

On the opposite side of the street is Manning’s, a health and beauty product chain store. North Point alliance church, which I almost felt was a sign from God, haha!-

There’s also a Wellcome supermarket, which opens till 10 or 11PM, great for grocery unless you want a Wet Market, which is located on Electric Road behind our building.

Next to there is a 24 hour McDonalds and McCafe, great for midnight snack.

Finally, although the jostling crowds in Hong Kong is sometimes annoying, but one of my favorite after work activity, is sitting at this Starbucks which faces the King’s Road busy crossing right outside Fortress Hill station, and watching the passerbys.

My suite was almost $9k per month and 1.5 to 1.8 for utilities, depending on usage. On hindsight, I might have spent less taking a cab to and from work everyday than to have rent this room. But, it’s made me grateful for the apartment I now have!