Are those Mormons or Real-estate Agents?

We have been here for a week now and as we look back over the last few days it is good to realize that we have accomplished quite a lot. After lugging our many suitcases up to our friends sixth floor apartment we were able to get some rest. It is very humid and quite hot here. Though it has cooled off a bit since we arrived, our first day had a heat index of 130! That first morning the temperature was 87 degrees before the sun rose! So like I said, HOT! Though after it rained on Wednesday it as been much more reasonable weather and the air much cleaner.

Our first task upon arrival was to find an apartment, and find one we did. I have not spent very much time looking at apartments in America, but I am pretty sure that the experience would not be the same. Some friends of ours who have lived here a few years began helping us look. We started online. There are some similar websites to Craig’s list where owners or realtors put apartments for rent. We saw some very promising results in our price range and in the areas we were interested in. However when we examined some of the pictures more closely we began to think that some of them maybe too good to be true. Like a third floor apartment that had a very nice view of New York’s central park… While most of the pictures were actually of the apartment in question, we found that most of the ones online had already been taken. Still the realtors advertising the house were quite happy to show us others.

One of our major requirements was that Devin be able to fit in the bathroom. You might laugh but the first 6 apartments we looked at he could barely fit a shower head between his head and the ceiling. We were feeling a little discouraged when we were seeing the same thing over and over. There was an apartment that we could make work but the kitchen was small, the bathroom way too short and it had lots of very Asian style built-in furniture which would make it hard to add our own touch and make it feel like home. After this last year of traveling and transition, we are very ready to have our own place; living in a country where you are always known as a foreigner, we want our home to be somewhere we don’t feel so out of place.

Finally we met with a real estate agent who took us back to his office where he asked us about some of the things we were looking for. Real estate agents here all wear white shirts, ties and black pants. They are often on bicycles and once you know what to look for they are everywhere! Devin found them very amusing. As we sat on stools drinking lukewarm water trying to explain that we didn’t need a big bathroom, just a tall one, he found a few places that might qualify. So we all got back on our bikes and rode the quarter mile to see the apartments.
We walked into the first apartment and it was a breath of fresh air. There was no old or nasty furniture we would have to ask to have taken awa; the living room was large and the bathroom was the right size. Finally we thought we have found our place. I walked into the kitchen which is like a long narrow hallway which is typical of many Chinese kitchens. It was a fairly nice kitchen but not my favorite style because it was cut off from the rest of the living space. So in other words, you can either be with people or be in the kitchen. This is a fairly typical style here so I figured we would just have to put up with it. I was saying as much to Devin when I opened the refrigerator at the back and was overwhelmed by the stench of garlic and ginger. We remembered that we had seen an “Arm and Hammer” baking soda knock off brand the other day called “Hammer noodles”. That refrigerator would have needed a lot of Hammer noodles!

The Narrow kitchen in need of "Hammer Noodles"

By that point in our search we felt really good about that apartment, but the realtor had one more place to show us in the next building over. So as we walked over I made the comment, wouldn’t it be nice if we could have an open kitchen and maybe even a patio? But we live in China, so that probably is asking too much I thought as we walked into a first floor apartment with a very open kitchen and dining area as well as a large living room with a patio! We were a little in shock. Here was our apartment; two bedrooms and even most of the furniture would work (once we had covers made). So we sat down with the landlady and negotiated the rent and other things that needed to be fixed.

The "Spa Shower" that is no more

We had to paint and there was an old “spa shower” in the bathroom that was about a foot too short for Devin so we asked if we could take it out. To which she said if we wanted her to do it she would charge us higher rent but if we did it ourselves we could pay the lower rent. So we agreed to paint, and fix up the bathroom, which meant installing a new shower head and sink. Fortunately in China these things are a little cheaper to do but still it has been a lot of work! It has been quite the process this last week getting our house ready to live in but that’s another story which Devin will tell you soon….

We will post some pictures of our place soon. We are glad to almost have a home!