Mike Wong Realtor, GRI

Well Im a little behind on my vacation blog because of the time difference and I seem to be just as busy on vacation as I am when Im in the office. I should be on at least day 3 by now. Funny when you only get a few hours of sleep per day, they all start to blend together.

Day 2 was very eventful. A trip to one of the many high end malls, the mid-level district and a journey on the famous world's longest escallator. A tour of the place where we are staying and its connected shopping mall, and a quick trip to experience Maccau. Did I mention I experienced my first ever typhoon.

Here is one of the many shopping malls in Hong Kong to visit. Most are several stories tall and very modern on the interiors.

Here is a wine retailer in one of the malls. Seems wine is a popular item here with many upscale vendors.

Hong Kong's Time Square on the eve of a typhoon.

Another photo of Hong Kong Time Square before the typhoon. The image on the left building is thier version of the NYC television screen.

A large building billboard was ripped off during the typhoon, while we were inside exploring the mall.

Mike Wong in Hong Kong: Day 1

Well a few people are figuring out Im on vacation now, so the cat is out of the bag. Yes Im on vacation, yet still checking in and replying to voicemails and emails from work. And now I just cant help comming back to Active Rain to keep up with things and some of my favorite people in real estate. Im across the world in Hong Kong and still playing in the rain, well they warned me it was a typhoon actually.

After Hurricane Ike and over a week without electricity I was looking forward to leaving on this vacation, despite the grueling flight. I arrived to a busy and spectacular city and was warned a typhoon was also on the way. Just what I didnt want to experience on a vacation!

Here are some photos from my 1st day to share on my trip. Hong Kong is an amazing city and refreshing perspective on another culture in the world. This city is so amazing. I'll going to try and keep updates and fresh photos of vacation and local events in Sugar Land daily as long as I can get internet access here.

Our gracious hosts and dear friends decorated our apartment bedroom room to greet us.
Just one of those simple gestures of friendship that mean so much.

Imagine getting to look at this skyline every night from bed. Its an architects dream! Here is the view from our apartment bedroom window on the 33rd floor.

We arrived in Hong Kong at 7pm and stayed up until 5 am catching up with our friends.

No time to sleep, we were awake and out after our first night and only 3 hours of sleep.

Photo of a local real estate office in Hong Kong's Stanley Market shopping district along the Repulse Bay.

Its common to see listing flyers covering the windows of every real estate office in Hong Kong.

Here is the residential tower where we are staying in Hong Kong. As you can imagine the city it so dense that residential housing buildings are built like skyscrapers. Monthly rent is $4,000 US for a approximate 1200 sf apartment.

I want to take some pictures tomorrow of the amenities. An outdoor pool the size of a football field. A seperate indoor pool as well. a 5 story gym. A built in shopping mall. Beautiful courtyards.

The streets are narrow and carved into the hills and mountains. Here is a photo from our cab on our way to the Stanley Market. Every oncomming car is nearly a head on collision, and busses have to yield to each other while passing on turns.

On the way there was a digital counter on the side of the roads that displayed how many traffic related deaths they had on a highway in one year. Our taxi driver flew by the sign so fast I couldnt read or take a picture of the count!

Here is a photo of Hong Kong's Repulse Bay. As you can see, not repulsive at all. The water was clear and blue, the scene was picture perfect.

Here I am shaking hands with a replica terra cotta soldier. Pretty friendly guy. Actually he told me that I was too stiff and needed to loosen up and enjoy my vacation!

Scaffolding is made up of bamboo for building construction and rennovations. Imagine what OSHA would have to say about this!

Here is a residential real estate listing flyer in Hong Kong.

St. Luke's Sugar Land Hospital, St. Luke's Episcopal Health System's newest facility, celebrated several grand-opening events last week, commemorating the opening of the hospital on Oct. 10 at 1317 Lake Pointe Parkway in Sugar Land.

Fort Bend area city and county officials joined in the festivities, and presented a certificate of special congressional recognition to the hospital.

The 100-bed hospital will offer inpatient and outpatient services, including cardiovascular services and women's services. Two floors of the hospital are private patient rooms, and the third floor is dedicated to women's services and the "Sweet Beginnings" newborn nursery in addition to the level 2 neonatal intensive care unit. Texas Children's Hospital provides the neonatology coverage with availability 24 hours a day. These physicians are employed by Baylor College of Medicine.

The hospital also includes a 16-bed intensive-care unit, eight surgical suites, special procedure rooms for endoscopy and pain procedures, cardiac catheterization labs, diagnostic and imaging services with a 64-slice CT scanner and 1.5T MRI, both with cardiac capability, and emergency department with 12 treatment rooms and five pediatric observation rooms.

If happen to be looking for a medical building in the area, I will have up to 12,000 of professional medical office space currently under construction for lease next to the hospital available early 2009.

Fort Bend's Sienna Plantation received CNBC Americas Property Awards 2008 for Best Development in Texas and for Best Developer Web Site. Residential property professionals from North, Central and South America and the Caribbean competed in 21 categories for the international CNBC Americas Property Awards, which have been presented since 1995.

"Our primary objective always has been to create an inviting community from all aspects - homes, amenities, landscape, infrastructure, retail and services," says Michael Smith, Sienna's general manager.

Sienna has twice been named the best development in Houston by the Houston Association of Realtors, and Robert Charles Lesser & Co. Real Estate Advisors recently recognized Sienna as one of the top-selling master-planned communities in America.

Sienna Plantation, a project of The Johnson Development Corp. with homes priced from the $160,000s to the millions, is a 7,000-acre master-planned community with a mix of land uses including residential, retail, commercial, civic, recreational, religious, educational and medical, and a variety of housing choices including single-family and multifamily.

For more information about Sienna Plantation contact Mike Wong 713-935-5800 for a personal consultation and tour of this great community.

Keller Williams Realty ranks highest among real estate companies in satisfying home buyers according to an inaugural Home Buyer/Seller Study by J.D. Power and Associates.

J.D. Power and Associates provides market research in a variety of areas, including real estate. Other recent surveys rank new home builders, new home design, new home quality and mortgage companies.

The Home Buyer/Seller Study measures customer satisfaction of home buyers and sellers with the largest national real estate firms. Overall satisfaction is determined by examining three factors for the home-buying experience: agent, office and services. The home-selling experience also considers marketing.

In the home-buyer segment, Keller Williams achieved a score of 831 on a 1,000-point scale and received highest ratings from customers in all three factors. We really do believe that the customer is most important, and we put thier needs and goals first. Following in the rankings were Prudential and Coldwell Banker. The largest firm in the U.S. Remax tied with Coldwell Banker to place in the top 3.

The study finds that, despite the popularity of home buying and selling resources on the Internet, real estate agents are key to customer satisfaction with real estate companies.

68% of buyers report using Internet tools to help them in the purchase process and 61% of sellers report that they used a Web site listing to market their home.

The study also finds that the average time a home for sale remained on the market was slightly more than six months. Home sellers represented by the top-ranking real estate companies report that their homes were on the market for approximately five and a half months, on average.

Nearly one-half of respondents: 46% use recommendations from family or friends to find their real estate agent. Approximately 28% use the Internet, while 23% use an agent they had used previously and 11% use a printed real estate guide.

Home buyers are shown an average of 13 homes before making a purchase.

On average, the homes are shown 11 times and five open houses are conducted before a sale.

The 2008 Home Buyer/Seller Study includes 3,670 evaluations from 3,205 respondents who bought or sold a home between April 2007 and June 2008.