It snowed all day today. I think it surprised even the locals. But that did not dampen our apartment hunt. We have looked at about 20 apartments in the last 2 days and have a few more to see today and we will be taking a second look at our top 4 from the last 2 days. Apartment hunting is an adventure in and of itself. In the US, landlords clean the apartments once a tenant vacates the apartment. Landlords want to present the best possible view to potential tenants. In China, landlords do not clean until they have a tenant signing the lease. Sooooo… you really have to look past the nasty left by the previous tenant and pray the landlord does a thorough cleaning. It is a bit challenging. But I remain hopeful!
We also did a very quick tour of a shopping mall and a couple of local grocery stores. It is not all that different from the states. I recognized many stores that we have in the US in the mall. There are Best Buys, StarBucks, Niki, Tommy Hilfiger, and many others. Wade has been especially worried about what we will eat. I took pictures that I emailed so that he could see… there are Pizza Hut, KFC, Papa John’s, Subway, Burger King and McDonald’s to name a few. What I didn’t tell him is that the menus look really different from our fare back home. It is clearly tailored to the Chinese palate.
Pizza Hut was our destination Monday for lunch. We chose the high road and had a veggie pizza with a Pepsi. Even the soft drinks have a bit of a different flavor. My favorite meals are breakfast at the hotel. There is a wide variety to choose from so I make breakfast count. We had Chinese food for lunch on day 2… it was really good, but different from Chinese in the states… I equate it to the differences in having Mexican food in Texas verses Mexican in Mexico. All food is tailored to the region and the tastes of the people that live there. I will just have to get used to it.
What I have also learned from my house hunting is that everyone has a bottled water dispenser in their homes. No one drinks the water in China, not even the locals. So there are many different brands of water available… the hotel offers s Coca Cola Specialty product called Ice Dew which is mineralized water. It tastes much better really cold… but when you drink as much water as I do… anything is better than nothing.
Well…. You are probably wondering why I have not mentioned our dinners. We have yet to make it out for dinner. We have come back to the hotel each afternoon and reviewed the notes and pictures… then a little nap… that has typically lasted 6-8 hours. Then we get up between midnight and 1. We have been thankful for my snacks I brought along for the trip. That has ended up being our dinner. Ah…cheese cracker and Oreos and nuts… and of course chocolate. We have a bit of a carpet picnic then go back to bed. There is always fresh fruit in the room daily… so we have that too. We are struggling with the time change… 14 hours difference. It has us really messed up…but we decided it was OK… since we would be headed home Saturday. But when we make the move in February… we gotta get straight on the time.
Did I tell you we opened a bank account at the Bank of China? We found it interesting that there is no notion of a joint bank account. Soooo… Michael is the only one that has a bank account… not me! It is really strange.. but it’s just another aspect of China that I will have to get used to.
Images from a local shopping area in Shanghai.. Starbucks...Pizza Hut...
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