~celestine in china~: stupid typhoon... lousy weather...

Day 8 – 30 Jul 08 (Wed)

Disgusting weather today… thanks to the stupid typhoon, the weather was really bad… howling winds, heavy rain… I’ve never experienced such strong winds ever… seriously, I felt like I was about to be blown away by the wind! Can u imagine…like me..?! it’s damn scary lah… you can just see the trees bending over so dangerously… my major lesson for the day is: HOW TO HOLD YOUR UMBRELLA… don’t assume that just because you have an umbrella, you wont get drenched, coz you’re so W-R-O-N-G… the strong winds cause the rain to splatter on you at awkward angles, and you’d better learn how to tilt your umbrella accordingly or you’ll be soaked to the skin, WITH or WITHOUT your umbrella… >_< moreover, the winds were so strong that they kept flipping our umbrellas upside down…so once again, the direction and angle at which you hold your umbrella is CRUCIAL!!! Otherwise, be prepared to get a new umbrella every other day! -_-“

Anyway, the day was spent searching for my Nanjing apartment… the first one we saw was near "mai gao qiao" (迈皋桥）mrt station in the city area. MGQ is 2 stations away from the railway train station where i'll have to go weekly to commute between nanjing and shanghai. the place was found by my company… initially, thought that we could just view the place, once satisfied, we could move in later that night. but in the end, the place wasnt that satisfactory. location wise was gd, interior wise clean and new BUT it was lacking in a lot of basic appliances! the apt basically looked rather empty coz it seemed that the renovation works had JUST been completed (if even completed in the first place). some furniture looked new, BUT various appliances were like old and pok. for eg. the washing machine looked so old, we were doubtful as to whether it was even in proper working condition. and yah, the whole house was very empty, didnt have much furniture. so of coz it wasnt a suitable place where we could move into immediately. the owner was saying that he would clean up the house and make everything swee swee by that night so we could move in, but obviously it was not very convincing coz the key idea was the lack of various furniture and appliances. moreover, the building itself had incomplete construction works, same for the surrounding blocks… so my mom was worried as to whether there would be lotza workers around, and whether the owner & workers will enter the apt even after i move in to supposedly continue renovation works or whatever, which would be dangerous...

sigh... lotsa trouble there... so in the end, we managed to get the agent to show us other apts for us to choose from… the 2nd apt we visited was also quite near MGQ station. Pretty nice place, well-equipped, very spacious, much bigger than necessary since I would be staying alone. But the cost was too steep... mom kept asking if there were those smaller, 1-room type of apts available, but the agent said none available for rental at the moment...

finally, we went down to the 3rd apt, about 1 or 2 bus stops from the railway train station… we were always told that it's rather unsafe near train stations coz there'll tend to be lotsa wanderers, pickpockets, etc hanging around, so the area can be quite 'messy'. but well, in this case, the location has its pros & cons coz being near the train station would mean that i can travel there conveniently when i need to commute between shanghai and nanjing. The place supposedly has some kinda security guard at the gate as well. this 3rd apt seemed quite satisfactory, with all the basic stuff, and in fact, it's been newly renovated… so yah, everything was pretty new, though the exterior of the building is chui (lousy)… but well, it's the inside that matters ultimately... (or so I thought…)

so anyway, we decided to rent the place. 1 of the main reasons why we had probs in finding a place was because this was a 6-month rental, while most landlords prefer at least 1-year rental so they wouldn't have to keep going through the hassle of finding agents to rent out their apts, and having to pay them a hefty sum as commission each time a deal is made.

After signing the deal, the owner taught us how to open/lock the door…I was thinking… how cheem can it get…don’t you just stick in the key and turn?! Boy was I wrong… it’s ULTRA CHEEM!!! Each time, when I get home, I have to fish out 4 keys! 1 for the main gate to enter the building, then when I reach my unit, I got to unlock this turning knob combi lock, which allows me to access the 2 keyholes, & after unlocking this outer door, I gotta unlock another inner door! Like omg… how troublesome can it get just to enter my house?!

Anyway, i forgot to emphasise that all this while it was raining DAMN heavily with the strong winds, and i was walking around in court shoes, and the back of my heel developed a blister so it was DAMN painful walking...argh...ultra bad mood... super sucky weather... how suay... and as we were recceeing the vicinity of my apt, we realized that the location was not THAT great after all.. to get to the train station, it's convenient, coz i can take any of the buses from the bus stop outside, BUT when coming back from the train station, the bus will stop on the opposite side of this MAJOR RD. ok, i cant even consider it a major rd, coz there're some road works going on at that junction/roundabout, which makes it SUPER dangerous & difficult to cross to the opposite side without getting knocked down by some heavy vehicle, car, motorcycle or bicycle... >_< so mom was extremely concerned about that...

sigh… basically the solution is that I’ll just cab back from the train station to my apt… the journey will only cost me around 9rmb, equiv to abt S$1.80… my mom was like… 这种钱是不能省的。。。it’s your safety that’s most important… =)

here's the end of the disgusting apt-seeking saga... let's hope our luck will get better from now...

Well, our day concluded with a dinner at a Chinese restaurant at湖南路 once again… name of the restaurant is 狮子楼. the food was ok… don’t think I’ll go there again though…

狮子楼