We moved into an apartment this afternoon. It was pretty much a necessity, considering we had used up the seven days the newspaper had reserved for us at a nearby hotel.

We now are in serious Hong Kong. Real Hong Kong. Crowded, loud, bustling Hong Kong. The Wan Chai neighborhood, to be precise. If precision exists in a few blocks encompassing just about every aspect of urban existence.

Utterly random, the way we got into this apartment.

On our second night here, one of the copy editors at the IHT mentioned that someone we would be seeing at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club was a former IHT staffer who had just taken a job in Jakarta with a start-up English-language business newspaper.

He had an apartment. He clearly wasn’t going to be living in it. We ought to ask him about it.  So we did.

Yep, he said. He was moving out. He had just come back to pick up a few more things before returning to Indonesia. And, yes, maybe the two of us moving in might work.  We could see the wheels turning in his head.

We went over the next day and checked it out. He kept apologizing for how small it was/is, but it’s bigger than our hotel room — and a heck of a lot cheaper. Well, we assumed it would be, because us staying there would be “found money” for Vince. We didn’t really talk price. (Until later and it was, in fact, quite fair.)

He said he needed a few days to think about it, and on Tuesday he told us we could have it until Oct. 29 for a modest fee, and we jumped at it.

Now, it’s not the perfect place. Which Vince was completely up front about. It’s a “guy” place, as my wife kept pointing out. A plasma TV, but no washing machine. A bicycle in pieces on the living room floor. A football and basketball on the book shelves. A “Heineken” bucket for beers above the sink.

It’s fine with me. But perhaps that’s because I’m a guy, and not a very persnickety one. I don’t expect things to be neat and tidy, and sporting goods taking up shelf space … well, why not?

It works for several really basic reasons:

1. It has two rooms, which goes a long way toward solving the “one sleeps while the other works” situation we have. My shift is 2-10 p.m., but Leah’s is midnight to 7 a.m. At the hotel, someone was trying to sleep in the same room where someone else was working or puttering around.

2. It has a TV.

3. It has an internet hookup, absolutely required for Leah’s telecommuting job.

4. We didn’t need a wad of cash up front to get in. People here tend to want first- and last-month’s rent up front, and that’s a fairly significant sum. Now we have until the end of the month to round it up. In the meantime, we didn’t even have to sign a contract.

5. We don’t have to pay an agent’s fee, which is typically a half-month’s rent. That is real money saved.

6. We have 20 days to get ready for the next apartment, and we are looking at two that appear promising — and can spend more money on either one because of how much we’re saving this month while crashing at Vince’s.

Another charming part of this deal … at least for now … is the neighborhood. It can hardly be more Chinese. This is an old part of Hong Kong. Sections of it are the city’s red light district. It has streets lined with old bars with flashing neon signs.

It is seriously crowded, and certainly not upscale. It is a neighborhood of a thousand little shops hawking just about anything imaginable.

It also is a neighborhood of stalled traffic, narrow sidewalks and what is, apparently, eternal construction.

Lots of living spaces, including the one we’re in, are found by climbing narrow staircases jammed between small businesses. In this case, up a flight of stairs to the landing. Ignore the hardware store on your right and punch in the code to open the door leading to the apartments.

Up one floor (of nine) in the rickety elevator. Ignore the boarded-up apartment to the left and work the locks on the door to the right … and there you are. Open the door, and you’re in the living room. To the left is a sink, a fridge, some crockery. A bit of a kitchen table juts out from the wall, with a stool on one side and a lawn chair on the other.

The bedroom is to the right of the entrance, and the queen-size mattress is on the floor and covers about 90 percent of the floor surface. We can hang some clothes in a corner by stepping on the bed. And there is a bit of closet space.

To the left of the kitchen is a bathroom with shower, and that’s cool. The living room features a gray couch with more than a few stains on it, but it’s comfy and faces the book shelf and the plasma TV.

Out the back door is a patio area, both left and right. Vince has a barbecue back there. But you have to be careful, especially on one side, because some old guy up on the sixth or seventh floor apparently chucks chicken bones out the window … and they land in Vince’s deck, which does not amuse him. (Hmm. Have we walked into a neighborhood dispute?) He says he’s called the cops on the guy, but they can’t quite figure out who it is. It’s winter, anyway, so we won’t be barbecuing — and running the risk of being conked on the head by chicken wings.

Anyway, this is total Hong Kong. Almost zero Anglos in the neighborhood, not much English spoken anywhere, a very snug apartment located up a crumbling stairway between tiny businesses, and a teeming street below.

But, then … I’m thinking 20 days, three weeks, will be plenty long enough to revel in  “real” Hong Kong. At the end of the month, we have to move out because some friends of Vince’s are coming to stay. Then we pack up and move again, for the second time. And last time, we hope. To someplace a bit bigger and perhaps a bit quieter/calmer.

I’m now leaving work, catching the metro, hoping to make my way back to an apartment I’ve been in only twice. I wonder if I can find it, in the dark. Think so.

Hey, it’s another adventure. Yeah.