Tiring Weekend

I had a 3 day weekend and somehow I managed to work more than normal...


  Holo! Do you ever have your iPod on shuffle within a certain play list or genre and it just seems to hit the spot every time it switches songs?  This morning was like that for me which was a nice relief after the hectic weekend.  I am exhausted and my work week just started.  Bummer.  This week I had a a 3 day weekend as the title suggests, but I managed to fill up those free days with plenty of chores that needed to be done.  Two of my friends and I are all moving in to an apartment together so we had to find a suitable place for the right price and dealing with Chinese agents was very frustrating.  I did get to jam out with some guys for a few hours on one of my nights off, but it was still tiring traveling all the way to their place and blasting some tunes for awhile even though it was quite fun.  My boss has been away on business in London for the past week and will be gone for this week as well which makes for a bit of a more relaxed work week although we have plenty to do.  I also had a run in with some craw fish which isn't too bad for you southerners but to me, it was a bit unsettling.  The week ended on a good note however, I bought a new acoustic guitar from a store where I have a few connections and I got it at cost which made me quite happy!  So let's get into some more gritty details about Chinese real estate and how to deal with the agents.





  That's a view of one of the apartments we looked at which is right next to the old World Expo site.  We would have taken it, but the area is rather undeveloped and shops/restaurants are few and far between.  We all agreed that it wouldn't be worth it to have to take the subway or walk a mile each way to get decent food when we we're at home and hungry.  As far as quality though, that place was pretty amazing with great beds (Chinese apartments come furnished as a standard), a patio (which is a must have for three 23-24 year old bachelors) and some great architecture as you see in the pic below with one of my soon-to-be roommates Bo.  It would have been cool to wake up every morning and open up my blinds in a 180° outlet and look out a a beautiful scene of a river and a foggy landscape.  But like I said, the pros did not outweigh the cons.





  Another place we looked at was great!  It was on the 26th floor with a great view and some nice rooms but the deal breaker was that the agents told us it was cheaper than it really was and we were trying to negotiate a bigger TV as well as get a lower price.  This didn't really work out plus the outdoor patio wasn't much of a patio so we told the landlord and agents it was a no-go.  Before I go any further, let me explain a little bit about the agents.  First of all, you can't just get one agent to help you out, you have to get at least 5-10.  They don't get paid unless you sign a contract with them so it's nice to get all the labor for free, but here's the catch: they don't freaking listen!
  We kept telling our agents (in Chinese of course, none of these negotiations had ANY English involved besides the chatter amongst ourselves) that we wanted to look at 3 bedroom apartments with the price range of 7000-7500RMB/month with a patio and on as high of a floor as they could get us.  Of course every other place we looked at was nothing close to what we said and we wasted time, energy and money to get all around town looking at these places.  As soon as agents would start jerking us around, we would promptly tell them in Chinese that they were idiots and we would leave because it was SO counter-productive to try and work with them.  A couple of times I lost my temper while talking to agencies because they kept insisting that we look at 8,000+ RMB/month apartments which we clearly stated we didn't want to.  In China yelling isn't really rude and it actually gets things done so when a foreigner started shouting at them in their native tongue, they usually tended to shape up.  If they didn't, then we would all walk out on them muttering curse words under our breath our sometimes out loud...
  We had finally found the place we're going to move into at the end of our searching which is nice and big (180m2) with comfortable looking rooms, 2 patios, a nice dining room, living room, kitchen and boy were we happy... for a few minutes.  We said we wouldn't move in unless we all had big beds (compared to the children's beds in 2 of the rooms) and if they replaced their TV with a more modern and bigger one.  The “agent” (as I'll say because he was certainly not very professional and definitely did not have a real estate license like just about every other agent in China) obviously was just looking to make his commission and tried to rush us into things.  Luckily one of my roommates-to-be had his girlfriend with us and as luck would have it, she's a real estate lawyer.  After several minutes of them arguing back and forth, we finally came to an agreement.  Mind you, this wasn't the contract agreement, this was just an agreement to have the agent negotiate with the landlord for our demands before we would even CONSIDER signing a contract.


  So 16 hours of searching in two days, 20 apartment viewings and 10 agents later we finally found the place we want to stay in and the landlord has accepted our negotiation.  They wanted us to meet them at 8a.m. (ugh there goes my sleeping in on the weekend) the next morning to work out the contract and put in some money as a deposit.  The next day we met them, but this time without my friends girlfriend and we had to sign a contract in 100% Chinese.  Whoa!  Between the 3 of us along with asking the agent questions we got everything figured out and it sounded fair so we signed, gave them cash and will be moving in on the 6th.  Finally! We're making progress.  I can't wait to move in and get away from the office because it feels like I'm never away from work at the moment which is a little trying sometimes.  I'm also excited to move in with some rather interesting fellows and throw a few parties at our new pad!  
  It almost feels like I've settled in to China and this will be one of my final steps.  Not to mention with a place of my own, I can continue the search for a Chinese girlfriend hahaha.  Now some of you are probably asking “what about poor little Nini?” Well I'm sure as you guys predicted, it's just not going to work.  I would list some reasons, but if it's not obvious after reading my last post, then I don't know what to say.  I'd probably say some of the things I called the Chinese real estate agents... Just kidding!





  That picture above is a cool place we saw that was a bit out of our price range, but it had 4 bedrooms so we could have rented one out right? Except for the fact that the 4th “bedroom” was barely big enough to fit a twin bed.  It's almost like sleeping in a coffin being in that room so we decided to just keep it to the three of us.  The picture right below was in an interesting place with some interesting furniture as you can see from the wood barrel-like wash basin.  Throw in a washboard for my clothes and a huge scrubbing brush and we're right back in the 1800's!  I would have had to sing barbershop quarter pieces while taking a shower to feel like I fit the scenery.





  Remember the Muslim restaurant I was raving about a few weeks ago?  Turns out there's a different one that's closer to the new office location and it's wayyyy better.  It even has some really good bread which has been my friend lately after eating such greasy and oily foods so often.  Every time I walk in (which now is quite often) they all use their broken English to say “Hey brother! What's up?!” Then they do some singing and dancing to the stereo they always have blasting with some pop tunes that I'm assuming are in an Arabic-Chinese mix because I can't understand a single word of it.  They always treat me right and the setting is a bit better than the previous Muslim restaurant I ate at so often.  They also have this black beer pictured below which is considered a “stout” with some of the “finest hops” in Asia.  It's not too bad of a beer but as far as a stout goes, it's nothing close and the flavor and mouth feel are actually rather unimpressive.  But hey, whenever I order one, the guy who brings it to my table always does a funny little dance and that alone is worth about ½ the price.





  There's also another restaurant literally right out the front gate of the new office that serves some really tasty fried bao zi (bow zzuh) that I'll snap a picture of and post next time.  They also have a really good tangy and spicy chili sauce that compliments them well.  Eat that with a bowl of tasty beef noodles and I've got a solid meal.  I've been a little less frugal lately when it comes to food because I believe that's why I have been sick.  I'm pretty sure I haven't been eating enough protein or vegetables lately so I've allowed myself more money for food every day and go for a little bit better quality when I can.  Eggplant still reigns supreme in my jungle of vegetables and I've been eating so many noodles, I wouldn't be surprised if they started coming out of my nose at some point.  My list of strange foods has been staying pretty low recently but the other day at a spicy restaurant, my friend ordered some spicy craw fish and it just wasn't my thing.





  They brought us plastic gloves to put around one hand so we could handle these suckers with our chopsticks, our teeth and our single-gloved hand.  The process was the most disgusting part considering the correct way to eat them in China is to hold them with your gloved hand at the head, hold the tail with your chopsticks and then bite into the shell right near where those two parts separate so that you can crack the shell and get a clean break.  That alone turned me off not to mention the meat wasn't that savory either.  Oh well, at least the squid and peppers along with the Huang Jiu filled me up and kept me satisfied.


  My Chinese is flowing a lot better lately and even if I don't completely understand every word someone is saying, it still registers in my head as far as a meaning goes and I am definitely only thinking in Chinese when I speak and listen.  To me, this is one of the first signals of fluency being attained.  I've even had a dream or two in Chinese lately which is good.  Although I can't express myself as fluently as in English or Spanish, I know that my mind is absorbing the language very well.  The only thing that's missing is a steady Chinese girl to help me use my Chinese on a more steady basis teehee!  I also find myself starting to absorb a little bit of the local Shanghai dialect of Chinese which my Chinese mother usually speaks with her friends so that's cool.  I'm glad that I finally found my niche after years of confusion in college and I'm glad that I'm putting it to good use.


  I jammed out with a couple of older guys the other day which was a lot of fun, but it was lacking something... oh that's right, Seth, Zack and David, the former all-star lineup of Tony G. and the Cure for Cancer!  It was still a good time and I might continue jamming with them, but we'll see.  I just bought an acoustic guitar as I mentioned, so I'll be doing some 1 man band stuff in the subways soon to give Shanghai a little taste of some Western music which should be interesting.  I've also been looking into getting connections with playing some gigs at some classy restaurants with a female singer.  I'll have to loosen up my attitude towards a lot of pop music which will be a challenge, but it's some pretty good extra money as well as a good place to make connections with international business representatives as well as expats living in the area.  I'm just excited to play for people regardless of whether it's in a dirty subway tunnel or in a classy restaurant.  It's the rush that does it for me.


  The trial period is over and it's time to do as the Romans do.  I'm finally getting into the swing of living here and adapting to all the normal customs and habits.  I'm interested to see what friends/family will say when they see me when they come to visit in regards to my way of life.  I think some people will be surprised at how I act but I assure you, I am assimilating to be like a local.  In fact, I'm going to buy an electric scooter soon since they are cheap and very effective at getting around.  I also just want to drive one around while constantly honking the horn like 90% of the Chinese out here with scooters so that I can feel like I fit in.  Either that, or I just really want to get my vengeance on all the people that annoy me by doing that.  Either or.


  It's come to my attention that you can't leave comments on these posts without making an account with this blog website.  Although it's free, it's a hassle many of you don't need so feel free to send comments or questions straight to my e-mail: munkyguitarist@gmail.com.  Also, I don't think the links from the pictures take you to my picture site, so here's that link: http://s875.photobucket.com/home/munkyguitarist/index The albums are titled to correspond with each post.





  Thank you Jen and Greg for sending me the present from Hawaii!  It's really funny because I showed it to a few Chinese friends and they didn't know what was so special about it because the way the Chinese count on one hand, that represents the number 6.  I explained that it's from Hawaii and that it means “Mahalo” which can mean any number of things including thank you.  Anyway, it'll be a great magnet on our new fridge in the new place.  By the way, the new place is about 35 minutes away from the office via the subway and so an idea popped into my head.  The idea is to expand my comfort zone and I'm going to try and talk with a different Chinese person everyday on the subway on my way to work to practice my Chinese and maybe meet some new friends.  This idea was inspired by my good friend Blair and how she constantly strives to make the most out of life by stepping out of her comfort zone as much as possible to experience as much as she can.  I would strongly recommend you give it a shot.  You'll be surprised at what you find out about yourself.


Bye bye


Tony G.