Apartment Hunting Time

The next phase after finding the work placement was to up and move from the northeasten part of the city to the far southwestern suburbs. Shanghai is no small city, 20 million give or take, and it took about 1 hour to drive from the NE to the SW. My last classes conveniently was with Ronna and she worked with her company to set up viewing appointments with an agency. As we drove down to the area I was thinking to myself what type of places are these going to be. You know most of the housing is pretty much communist-style bars on windows, stark in the "model quarters" they have all over town. Of course you can live in the center of the city high-rise but you are going to pay a pretty penny for it...even by London standards! Real-estate prices are going through the roof. On the other side of the spectrum you can find cheaper places where you can pay $100-150 per month.

So on the road with Ronna..we went to meet a gal from her company Lydia who works in Admin and she called the real estate agency company on my behalf for viewings. This night they took me to some nice places that felt like they were in the middle of the boonies. Pretty much one university with 70k students, not close to the subway was really not what I was looking for. AND..this one is really important..a PROPER supermarket..with an imported goods section. Once you have that you are all set. After the first night, I wasn't really convinced that the area was for me...big places in nice communist-like communities but too far in the middle of knowhere.

Onto the next day...well LUCKILY the day before we dropped off another gal before heading to do some viewings. She admitted that another guy at her company was looking for a place and he was about the same age as me. The strange thing was her and Ronna kept questioning me on living with a guy..apparently it is taboo here. You live with a guy only if you are basically engaged. But I think that is changing. So I had a quick chat with the guy and he was already looking for a roommate plus he already viewed 7 places and found a good one that he wanted to show me..phew..thanks mister. Apparently the gals told me is a Korean/Chinese - minority in China. The funniest thing is his name: Crane..sounds like his Chinese name so I guess that is why it came easily in English.

Well Crane took me around with Ronna and Irene (his boss and student in my exchange)...more communist-style housing communities and smaller 2 bedroom apartments. Nothing REALLY caught my eye. Yes, they were all fully furnished but some a bit too far from the subway. Although I was pretty content with the area. It had a traditional chinese community feel with really no Westerners. There is a massive mall with Western supermarket 10 minutes walk away and the metro is the same distant.

So the night went on and Irene, Crane's boss and gal in my exchange program had the best proposal of the night so far. She offered me to rent a room in her place which was even nicer than the places I had seen and closer to the mall and metro. Phew! Well I just thought about it for a split second and made sure that Crane was okay with that. Apparently they were discussing in Chinese all about the situation and thought it would be better for me to stay for the short-term because in China you would usually take a lease out for a year.

My new home: Lianhua Road

Well I knew already this would pretty much be a communist-style community fit with bars on windows. Bars on windows in China is a must..this country is not safe..RIIIIGHT! Probably the safest country I have been in..with undercover police everywhere. Lovely lil 2 bedroom pad with a nice entertainment system and big bedrooms. I was looking for the karaoke system but unfortunately that's a no go...there is a good selection of pirated DVD's to keep me busy and a small garden in the back.