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We’ve been in our new apartment for 3 weeks now, so I feel enough time has past that I can now speak about the attritional
FIVE hours spent signing the lease. Ok, so maybe 2 hours of that was spent in grid-locked traffic on our way to 2 China Telecom offices (first one was closed by the time we were driven right up the pavement to the front door) to sort out an internet connection. We made it back to the apartment around 7.30pm.
Question: how many people does it take to sign a lease in China?
Answer: 7 (us, a friend from work, our 85 year old landlady and her daughter, our agent and her accomplice).
Our landlady may look like a sweet old lady, but she has years on us in the negotiation department, and she can talk… a lot (which then had to be translated for us by our agent). After having gone through every tiny detail in the lease, checked the inventory, negotiated for various bits of hideous/obsolete furniture to be removed, repair of a window, utility bills, etc, etc, etc… we all signed and we got the keys. 11.30pm - time for dinner a
much deserved beer.
So, we’re in the French Concession / Jing’An district. We really like the area. The streets are full of little boutique shops - as you can see from the photos we’ve attracted a fair few celebrity retailers. There are loads of local cafs and restaurants, we’re 10 minutes from the metro and the main shopping districts are within 10 minutes walk including Marks & Sparks!
As rents are very expensive here, we decided to go for ‘old style charm’ rather than pay through the nose for a swank modernised apartment. We’re on the 11th floor, it has a huge living room/dining room, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a study and a very badly planned out kitchen. We’ve ended up with a little table-top oven and 2 ring hob after all! But there’s plenty of good, cheap eateries on our doorstep. It has cheap, but not very cheerful furniture & fittings, so we’ll brighten it up by adding our own bits and pieces. Eventually, it will resemble a much loved and slightly more stylish home!
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