More good eats around town

Now that we've booked our flight back to Toronto, CharK and I have been spending these past couple of weeks in tourist mode. For starters, we've been trying foods and restaurants that were always on our "list" but that we never got around to.

HK cafes has always been a favourite of ours, with the variety of snacks milk tea and coffees. But somehow I've always left out ordering the iconic pineapple bun with butter. I've heard the allure of the combination is the hot bread wrapped around the ice cold hunk of butter. But my favourite is the peanut butter french toast that we also ordered along with a club sandwich. The crunchy bread and creamy peanut butter makes for a great (greasy) snack!

A greasy but yummy meal (Photo: CharK)

Another classic dish is wonton and soup noodles While I've had a lot bowls from university cafeteria, the noodles and wonton taste is much better at another iconic HK restaurant--Wong Chi Kei. I'm no food critic, but I like the noodle texture and shrimp that is served.

Weekday tea time at Wong Chi Kei (Photo: CathC)

One major benefit of being a tourist is going out to eat during the weekend tea time, when most people are still at work. There are no lines and the menus offer snack size portions. Aside from being less expensive than the lunch menu, the smaller portions means I can try a couple more things! A couple of "new" dishes to me were the truffle egg sandwhich, I'm not sure what makes this a "Portuguese dish" but it tasted great! The osmanthus and coconut gelatin was delicious, there was a lot of osmanthus leaves that the taste really comes through.

In most restaurants, vegetarian dishes are often a few items on the menu. But not so for Gaia Vegetarian Restaurant. Although the menu contains chicken and pork items, they are actually various vegetable, tofu, and mushroom ingredients in disguise. Some people think that vegetarian dishes should stand alone, rather than imitate meat dishes, but I think they can be playful and fun to eat. Like this orange peel pork ribs, the texture of the mushroom did give the dish a slightly meaty, stringy texture. But other dishes like the deep fried durian, are just fun to eat anyway. Surprisingly, the typical durian odour gets masks pretty well once it's deep fried.

A vegetarian take on "clay pot chicken and date rice" and dried orange peel ribs, as well as fried durian and kimpora salad, (Photo: CathC)

Resolving my pension fund

HK's pension fund is known as the mandatory pension fund (MPF) which both employers and employees are required to contribute at least a fixed amount every one you're employed. Normally you're not allowed to withdraw the funds until you're 65, but there are excepts in certain cases. Like permanently leaving Hong Kong...

Photo: http://www.mpfa.org.hk/

Aside from submitting forms to get my MPF back, I had to first get a statutory declaration. Basically this is a form stating my departure date and is officially notarized by a government representative. HK offers a free notary service at the Home Affairs Department. The location at Wan Chai completes the "swearing in" process every hour and is very quick to be completed. Once the form is completed, you read a passage in front of the staff  member to declare the statements/information are true.

With the declaration and letter of release from the Inland revenue department in hand, I booked an appointment with the university's MPF investment company. The officer reviewed the forms and double checked all the relevant details were correct and said everything should be processed and deposited within a month. So wrapping up my financials only took about 2 days...

Taxes...taxes...

Now that I've finished my last day at the university it's time to wind things down and begin planning for the move back to Toronto. I know everyone says this but I really feel these last 3.5 years in HK have flew by. Despite the structure that comes with an academic setting, one event and course just blends into the next. So the year just rolls by really quickly.

Here in HK, it's required that employers withhold your last month's salary until you receive tax clearance from the revenue agency. So the first place that CharK and I went after last day was the Revenue Tower out in Wan Chai. I was quite impressed by the speed at which paper work could be completed, I was able to pick up the letter of release within the day. The process of clearing our taxes still took us about half a day and started by going to the general counter to get a referral to the right floor for processing our claim.

The line just speeds through since most people just need referrals or simple explanations of how to complete the tax form. (Photo: wikimedia)

Then the wait really begins...

The office on the 26/f deals with a number of tax application changes like name changes and departures from HK. The staff at the counters will explain how to complete any outstanding tax forms and then you wait... First the officer needs to talk to you and review your tax form entries. Then you submit the form to him/her for a calculation of taxes. That calculation takes about 1 hour and you can come back to get your assessment. The tricking thing with timing is that the post office closes at 5pm while the revenue agency closes at 5:30pm. Normally, taxes more than 5000HKD are paid through the post office and then you'd take the receipt back to the revenue agency. They will exchange the receipt for a letter of release regarding your taxes. So this means if you owe more than 5000HKD on taxes you cannot pay it until the next day...

Depending on the time of year you leave, it's very possible that you'll actually get a refund. Like us, since we had paid our provisional taxes from the previous year. So the process was actually pretty straight forward.

So that was step one in wrapping things up. Next step--MPF claims...

*update* As was promised by office, I received my tax refund in mail within a week. Nice to have a little extra cash to spend before we leave...