New Apartment!!

The past week has been quite hectic as there is quite a bit of stuff to do to get registered in China when you are planning on staying for a year. Between those activities, teaching, and looking for apartments we have not had much free time.

We looked at close to 20 apartments over the past week. The first ones that we looked at were mostly studios and boy is a studio in China quite small. We then looked at a few one bedrooms, some where much better than others. A lot of them are quite small, much smaller than my one bedroom that I had in San Francisco. Mei took us to look at an apartment that was on the 27th floor, as you know Ashlee does not like elevators and I am not the biggest fan of heights. The apartment ended up being quite amazing. It faces south and has a nice view of the mountains around the city. Another plus of the apartment was that it had a large kitchen, the furniture in the apartment was quite nice, and it had a large balcony.

We looked at a couple more apartments after seeing the 2th floor one, but none seemed to fit what we wanted for some reason or another. We had Mei and another local logistic person talk with the owner of the 27th floor apartment owner to negotiate the rent. We ended up getting a decent amount of the monthly rent which was nice.

Signing the lease ended up being quite the adventure thought. It took a total 6 people to get the paperwork done (Ashlee, me, Mei, two other ladies from the school, and the owner). It was the first time I have signed a contract in which the only word I could read was my name and Ashlee's name. The good news was that Ashlee and I would be able to move in the same day.

After signing the contract Ashlee and I headed back to our old apartment to make the first trip in moving stuff over to the new place. Quick side note: all the taxis in Hangzhou change shift between 4 and 6pm and the drivers will only take you if you are going in the direction in which they need to go in order to turn their car in. Needless to say Ashlee and I were standing in the street at 4:30....After showing about 5 or so cab drivers the address we were trying to go to and having them drive off we finally found one that would take us and our ridiculously heavy luggage to our new place. The one suitcase i had was so large the cab driver couldn't even close his trunk...

Also all the cabs in Hangzhou have like white sheets over the seats. The drivers are super paronoid that you may get a speck of dirt on these white sheets, although they have cigarette burns and are all turn. So when you are attempting to load bags in the car the drivers look as though they are going to jump over the front seat to make sure you don't mess up the cloth.

At least trip one from the old place was complete and after the struggle to get a cab we decided to wait until tomorrow to try around two. Round two went much smoother as we made it to the curb at about 3:30 and were easily able to get a taxi.

I will try and get some pictures of the two apartments posted online in the next few days as we are awaiting having the internet installed.