Apartment hunting, and escaping, in Hong Kong.

I look over at Serena, I catch her eye, and can barely contain a smile. She's also smiling with her eyes. I manage to control myself, and cast my eyes down to the floor, and replace the smile with a withdrawn expression.

"What are you going to do?!" The middle age women states, more than asks, in her sharp English.

It feels like we're two rambunctious 12 year olds who are being scolded by our school principal.

She continues...

"You won't be able to find anything like this for this price. Are you going to go back to Canada?"

"I don't know" I respond in the most pathetic voice I can muster, while I'm still struggling to suppress a smile. I feel bad about lying, but at the same time can't help but find humour in the situation.

It all started a week ago, when we first came to Hong Kong following an amazing, but exhausting, 6 week trip through mainland China. Apartment hunting can be stressful anywhere, but more so in Hong Kong's unbelievably inflated housing market, it becomes nearly unbearable when coupled with the intense 45+ degree July heat.

We wanted to find an apartment as soon as possible; desperate to leave our cramped hostel room, equipped with a 1 square meter washroom, and a bed that takes up 80% of the floorspace.

We found a place that was okay, decent price (for Hong Kong), a little older, a bit dirty, and kind of out of the way of the main transit lines, but maybe because it was 4 times the size of our current room, we were able to rationalize putting a deposit on it.

After sleeping on it, we began having second thoughts. It doesn't have a washing machine, it's going to tack on an additional 30 minutes to our morning commute, and the building is kind of sketchy (Serena isn't convinced that my idea of keeping a baseball bat bedside will provide adequate security).

But it does have a harbour view! Kind of, if you look out at a certain angle through one window.

The real estate agent phoned to inform us that the landlord wished to meet before authorizing the rent that we agreed upon.

This gives birth to our diabolical plan.

We realized that we both regretted putting down the deposit. The one problem is we don't want to walk away from the money, and we are unsure if we could get it back just by asking (In hindsight we likely could've).

So we decide to adopt the facade of a young couple unsure of their finances, who expected their parents to support their living expenses, but we're recently informed that would not be the case. The theory is that if they are not confident we can pay the rent, they will not rent to us, and therefore refund our deposit.

Now we are looking down at the floor in the real estate office, trying to avoid eye contact out of fear that laughing will ruin the act.

I briefly feel shame about carrying out the plan, but maybe it's the same july heat that caused us to accept a dingy apartment so quickly, that allows me to push any doubt to the back of my mind.

Suddenly, the abrasive real estate agent stops talking. She looks up at us with tired eyes, and reaches for the contract that we signed yesterday. She looks directly at me, I see the anger on having lost a sale, but also compassion for the poor young couple sitting in front of her. She tears up the contract, and hands me the envelope of cash that we had delivered the other day.

A wave of relief wells inside, but a twinge of pain is also present. Knowing that we successfully duped the woman into giving us our deposit back, I can't help but feel shame for having found, and played, with the human side of this seemingly money obsessed real estate agent.

The other discovery I have as we walk away from the office, envelope in hand, is my hidden talent for lying. Sure we almost blew it a few times, but in the end it worked perfectly.

I'm disconcerted by the fact I was able to take on a different persona so easily, but as we continue down the street, and the summer heat turns my brain to jello, these thoughts fade as my only concern becomes finding a cool place.