Day 6 -- Still Searching

(I should warn you that the next 3 updates are pretty boring, unless you like all the real estate stuff.)

After the adventures of Tuesday and Wednesday, we decided to take it easy on Thursday morning. I stayed at the hotel and caught up on work and email, while Tommy went into the office for a little while.

We met back up at lunchtime and headed for Thumb Plaza, our new neighborhood. Tony had mentioned that a new restaurant called Goody!Goody! was pretty good, so we decided to eat there. Our first restaurant experience on our own, not couting Pizza Hut, and no one spoke English. No English on the menu. No other laowi in sight. We basically pointed to the menu, smiled, and prayed that we hadn't selected the stewed tendon over noodles. (We hadn't.)

After lunch we had some dessert in another little shop -- there are dessert and pastry shops every 10 feet in this town -- and then decided to walk to the closest subway station. It was a nice walk, about 10-15 minutes. We shopped around in the underground market (my first negotiating success -- a knock-off Ralph Lauren trench coat for about $13) and then got a call from Tony and Sergey. They were over at Yanlord Town with Candy, their agent, and she was willing to show us a few apartments over there. Considering that we hadn't heard anything back from our own agent, we headed back to the compound.

Searching for an apartment here is absolutely exhausting, and it doesn't help when there are over 4000 apartments in a compound, and duplicate buiding numbers. It took forever to find Tony, Sergey, and Candy, but at least while we were waiting we got to see just how many little kids live in the compound. The cutest, fattest little babies, plenty of kids running home from kindergarten or riding their tricycles, and lots of smiling grandparents. We felt better and better about our decision. We toured a few apartments, and then we found the best place we'd seen so far!

The price was high, but it was in a great location within the compound. We submitted an offer that asked for a lower price, plus a whole bunch of concessions and additions/changes to the furnishings. We also submitted a back-up offer for a different apartment. Because apartments go so fast, and because there's not a whole lot of protection against your potential landlord giving your apartment to someone else, you have to set up 2nd and 3rd choices.

After looking at the apartments and resting for a while at the hotel, we headed out for dinner -- this time, to a Thai restaurant in Jin Qiao near our hotel. It is so different eating in Jin Qiao than in Puxi, where we had been the night before. It was just like going to a Thai place at home, where the menus are in English and forks are standard.

So, that was pretty much Thursday. More apartments to see just meant more decisions to make, and we're starting to run out of time!