I signed the contract for the lease of a new office last evening. Wow, it happened so fast. My husband’s auntie, who is a property agent, called us a few days ago and said that there are some offices available in the area of our current office. Of course I agreed to check them out in the hope to get a better deal. And I really did find one. It is a bit smaller, but the area is much more useful because it doesn’t have a long corridor like the current one (which just wastes space and therefore money). The standard is much better because it was just renovated, so everything is new and clean. The whole office is very bright and I have a great view over Kwai Fong. It’s cheaper too And the best part: the new office is just one floor below the current one, but facing a different direction!!! How cool is that! We only need to move one floor down. I can’t wait to move into the new, bright office at the end of this month.

Here you can have a look at my new office:

this is my new office

Exactly one year ago we moved to our new office in Kwai Fong, Hong Kong. We are still in the same office and have lots of space. Because of the Financial Crisis we may even be able to negotiate a lower rent for the 2nd year. Alan will call the landlord today and see what is possible. We may get a 50Euro-100Euro lower rent. Yay. At the moment, it’s still just me working there full time and Alan coming in every other evening. But we are planning to get me an assistant soon as the workload is getting more and more. I hope I can find someone suitable. I read that the Hong Kong government will support companies who offer internships for graduate students from August 09 on by paying 200Euro per month for their salary. They want to support companies during the Financial Crisis and prevent students being stranded after graduation. I think that’s a great idea and also a good opportunity for me to finally get an assistant.

I got a visit from 2 representatives from Alibaba.com today. Alibaba is the biggest sourcing website for finding suppliers in China and Asia. Until now we had a free account there to promote our company and products to possible customers in Europe and USA. We get enquiries almost every day but having a free account has a big disadvantage: the number of products is limited to 50pcs only. A friend of mine got a Gold Membership last year but never activated it because of personal reasons and he offered me to take over his membership for free. That is a really generous offer because usually these memberships cost around 40,000 HKD (~ 4,000 EURO) per year.  I promised him to send him a cheque if we find a lot more customers with this new account. So the guys from Alibaba came to check out my office and verify the business address. I will get the new Gold Member account within the next few days and I will be able to upload and promote as many products I have. Keeping my fingers crossed to find more potential wholesale customers for my business.

An old customer of us visited me today in my office. He is from Germany and wanted to see our current products. Last year in April he visited me for the first time, I wrote about it here. He was our first visitor visiting us at our new office. Today, he ordered some items we had in stock and we may be also helping him to make a new online shop and optimize it for Google. His current shop isn’t suitable for Google and Alan will be able to optimize it for him. Alan is really knowledgeable about Google Search Engine Optimization and a very skillfull programmer. Anyone interested in Search Engine Optimization SEO, please have a look at his website: SEO Expert

Today we got a suprise visit from France. A couple rang at our office door and introduced themselves as shopowners from France. I was surprised as I have never heard from them before and they didn’t even announce their visit with a phone call. We invited them in and they told me that they would like to buy my Tenshi Neko bags and wallets. I showed them some Tenshi Neko bags and Tenshi Neko wallets and explained our usual wholesale procedure. They left me their contact details so I can send them my wholesale catalogs.

They were really lucky to meet us because its Chinese New Year and therefore a public holiday. We decided to work today (we are so hard working) and catch up on some work. Lucky them

Today is a typhoon in Hong Kong, therefore we have to stay at home and shouldn’t leave home. It can get really messy when there is a typhoon here. As there are lots of advertisement billboards and the open sea, it can even get dangerous (falling billboards, sudden gusts from the sea etc.) so people are usually advised to stay at home and all offices, small shops, public transporation shut down. So, I enjoy a day at home now. Cheers

OK, here we go again, another problem with the office. While I was working I heard a dripping sound coming from the bathroom. I thought “oh no, not again”. When I checked it out I saw water dripping from the fan and the floor was wet. Great, another leak. I called my husband immediately to tell the landlord about that. A little bit later the door bell rang and the guy from upstairs was in front of my door. He apologized once again and said that he was using some water pressure machine to clean his bathroom. We found out that the water was dripping in from outside and the fan isn’t really water proof. We will need to fix that soon as the raining season will start in June.

Our landlord came by this morning to check out the problem in our bathroom. He left and came back with the construction worker and the owner of the office upstairs. Our landlord and the construction worker started discussing and arguing. I didn’t understand a word but it was obvious that he was angry with that guy. The owner of the upper office apologized to me many times (his English was quite good). They then started to fix the hole by pouring concrete into the hole from upstairs and painting white paint over it. That’s it. I hope that;s safe enough and the ceiling won’t come down again.

the fixed hole after the concrete was poured in

When I went to work this morning a “nice” drilling noise welcomed me at the entrance door. I thought, oh no, I have to stand this noise the whole day. After I entered the office the noise became louder and louder. When I reached my room the noise was almost unbearable. There was definitely a construction going on on the upper floor and it seems they are rebuilding the toilet as the noise came right from there. I went into our bathroom to check it out and the noise was extreme. I looked up and saw some water drops falling down! Ok, something was wrong here.

I tried to call my husband to ask what to do. As I don’t speak any Chinese I didn’t know how to talk to construction workers. Unfortunately, he didn’t pick up his phone so I tried to work for a while. Suddenly, I heard a very loud noise which sounded like falling rocks. I carefully went back to the bathroom and saw that the ceiling came down! Can you imagine that? These stupid construction workers drilled so long until a part of the ceiling broke down. Oh God! Now, I didn’t know what to do. I got my shoes and just wanted to go upstairs, as the door bell rang and one of the workers stand outside. He said something like “Solly, Solly” (= Sorry) and pointed to the ceiling. I showed him the way to the bathroom and he checked it out. After that he left me his phone number.

Finally, Alan picked up the phone and he called to that guy and asked what the hell he is doing. They said they will come tomorrow again and fix it. Oh God, this is really scary. I am afraid now that the rest of the ceiling will come down as well. Or worse, the ceiling in my office. As Asterix and Obelix said: “Help, the sky is falling!”

I am back online! YEAH! Yesterday the “internet man” came by and installed the broadband connection (4MB up- and download) but unfortunately it didn’t work after he was finished. He said something about “Port, building, broken” in his broken english. I wasn’t sure what he meant. So Alan called to Hutchison and asked why our internet doesn’t work. They said that they have to fix something at the building and I should try again the next day. So today, I went to office again and tried it out. Luckily it worked! Finally I can work properly again No more late answers for all my customers’ emails.