Nice play!!

We found an apartment! It took us two hours this afternoon, and we can move in tomorrow. Basically we called up this broker guy and said, "hello, we are foreign students, we look for apartment! reasonable price and clean! you can help us?"

to which he replied, "yes, yes, very happy to help. you are from what country?"(The US was a satisfactory answer. Apparently there WAS a wrong answer...don't know what it was though). He said he would meet us at five o'clock. At five, he pulled up on his bike at the appointed location.

We went and looked at a few apartments. The first was too small and too filthy. The second was too large and to full of heinous Chinese knickknacks. The landlord, who was there, kept using them as selling points. "Oh, but look!! This shelf, very good!! This shelf extremely something-something-something!!! I promise, you will find this shelf very something-something!! Best shelf ever!!"

"Oh, yeah, ok, we understand, nice shelf." Um, nice if you like a shelf that is painted to look like beige stone, and covered in items ranging from gleaming golden plastic Chinese lions to a "stone" Jesus head.

"You see!!! The TV!! Very excellent, no problems!! Look, it will even turn on!! Two big TVs, one in each bedroom!!"

"Yes, yes..." what do we want with TVs? It's not like we're going to watch them anyway...Not to mention the fact that when not in use, the TV is supposed to be covered with this HEINOUS pink doily-type thing with kitties embroidered on the front. I think not.

"Look, the kitchen, very big!! There is even space for you to keep bread, and to cut it up!! And you will find this stove very something-something, and also the refrigerator quite something-something!!!"

So that one left us feeling a little bit bad inside, because we thought maybe all the apartments (which all come fully furnished) would be similarly gaudy.

The third one was on the ground floor and was all white tile, which tends to be constantly filthy. With the addition of bars on the windows ("Beware the thief!!!"), it felt pretty institutional, somewhere between a hospital and a prison. Eunjee told the broker, "no, we don't like it, the beds have those things that go up and down." Bed and window have the same sound, different tone. We meant, the windows have bars on them! The broker, needless to say, was bewildered.

So, we came to the fourth apartment. The building was painted a sun-flower yellow, and the complex had TREES, PARKS, and a SPORTS FIELD. How luxurious. We saw that the building we were going to look at had roof terraces on the very top floors. We got excited about that, but didn't want to show too much emotion because then we knew the guy would jack up the price.

We walked up to the seventh floor (no elevator) and scoped the apartment. It was clean, with big kitchen, big bathroom, big living room, and two bedrooms the same size under the eves with sloping ceilings. The roof terrace, I'm pretty sure, was imported directly from Tuscany. I'm not even kidding you. The building is yellow, right, with red Chinese (OR TUSCAN) roof tiles, and to the west you can see the mountains. Our broker was like, "very nice place to sit with some friends and drink beer!!" and our landlady, trying her best, said, in English, "Here you can have the breath. The fresh breath." To be fair, fresh air IS hard to come by...

So a little haggling later ("Please, we stay one year, go a little cheaper! We very nice, no dirty, a little cheaper! This apartment does not face south (very important selling point with the Chinese), you should go a little cheaper!"), we forked over a thousand kuai and the place is ours! We can move in tomorrow. Rent will be about USD 275/month each, plus utilities which will run about USD 15 each.

Back at the hotel later, we were kind of like, really? I still can't tell you the words for: landlord, tenant, rent, lease, utilities, gas...let alone phrases such as, "are the utilities included in the rent? whose responsibility is it if something breaks?"

Basically our communication with the broker was limited to, "this one, we like! this, not clean! kitchen, too dirty! bathroom, too small! will you give us good price? can you go cheaper? is there internet? Ok, ok, yes, very good, very good. Particularly good!!!"

But the guy was nice, and the landlady was ok too....so here we are! Pictures coming soon.