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Today (Wednesday, May 28)
I'm awake after another huge nap. I have started a bad habit with sleep that may continue. The funny thing is I never nap at home. I think I am just not fully adjusting to the time change--which is fine since I am going to be adjusting back in a few days. I slept through dinner for the second day in a row, so I can't share any fabulous dinner stories...much to my dismay. I did have a good breakfast and lunch today. We ate lunch at a fun food court that reminded me of the one at Water Tower in Chicago. You load a card with money, and then use it as a debit card to buy anything in the place. It's huge and has all sorts of stations. Mark got some great steamed potsticker type thing with great sauces and I picked dumplings that turned out to be wantons and went in a soup. Great choice on a hot day in a hot restaurant. Still very tasty.
Today was all apartments. I got picked up at 9am and got back to the hotel at 4:30pm. Mark was only able to join us for about
2 hours. I was picked up by 2 agents (Li Na and Zoya). They spoke excellent English and we had an easy time communicating. They did spend a lot of time speaking to each other and other people we met throughout the day in both Mandarin and Shanghainese (a local dialect). Li Na explained that locals switch between the 2 since not everyone visiting Shanghai speaks the local language. Mandarin is the business language here, unless everyone in the room is from Shanghai. I understand neither, so I spent a lot of time wondering what they were saying. Li Na was a great guide. She pointed out local shopping areas, transportation hubs, and the many, many Starbucks outlets!
We went around by cab and foot, so I was well prepared in my running shoes today. We walked a lot since many compounds (the large apartment buildings we visited) are near one another in each neighborhood/district. We looked at some town homes and 2 story duplexes too. One place had 4 stories (very narrow). A lot of high rises with some units on the lower or even ground floor. We liked many of the lower floor units, because they had
such easy access to the outdoors. The nicest place we saw today had been rehabbed and had very nice, shiny new appliances, with a washer AND dryer. That is not an automatic here. It's something we can negotiate for (the dryer). I saw 1 apartment with a dishwasher...so I'm guessing we don't end up with one. Ovens were also a rarity--though I did see a few. Turns out, what I thought were ovens in most of the apartments were actually sterilizers. They look like ovens, but have 2 racks, and are used after washing dishes to sterilize the dishes. Seems to be the same concept as a dishwasher, but when in China....We will have a microwave, and maybe a toaster oven, but most meals will be on the stove (or at the restaurant!). It seems that we can ask for some furniture changes in many of the apartments. There's a whole negotiation process, which our agent will help us with when we get to that point.
Some of the apartments have gyms and pools and even tennis courts. However, access to them is not included in the rent. I think it can be negotiated as well, or at least
some of the fees can be negotiated. We'd rather find a nicer apartment in a good area we can walk to more stuff, than have those facilities on-site. The buildings all had playgrounds and areas kids can ride bikes safely. We saw a lot of children, especially babies since the older kids were in school.
We see more tomorrow. Different agent, so hopefully different inventory. Then on Friday we are back with Li Na to see some new places and revisit any we liked (and some that Mark missed).
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Sue
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household appliances
Awesome blog-work, Suzanne! My parents' apartment had that dish sterilizer, too - and I was very confused. Have you come across any squat toilets yet?!?