After much consideration from having stayed with M a few days, we decided that we would try to rent our own place, for much needed privacy, as well as feeling more at ease for everyone. It was getting somewhat frustrating as M and our world is quite different, and it would hard to mesh it all together.

So we braved heading out for our search on our own, which I must say, is so much more work when in another language from a place one is not familiar with. We start off with some internet research, which is harder because not all places advertise the way we do in the West. Then I try to write down the simplified Chinese words for the address or name, then look it up in the Chinese dictionary to see what the traditional characters are, so that I can recognize them, in order to pronounce it. You see, I learned Chinese in it’s traditional form and speaking while in Taiwan and in Vancouver. But in China, most mainly use simplified and speak a form or variation of the traditional/classic Mandarin language. It’s like us Canadians learning english from a Scot or Aussie or even Welsh. It’s got a different tone, way of sayings, and accents. It’s all a bit confusing. At any rate, we managed to find a few ads and places, and decided on going to see one place, the Huafa New Town development. This place caught our eye last time we were here, well, from the road that is, and with it being the only one with a website that had a ‘foreign sales office’, it really made our decision a little easier. haha.

So with my out of practice Chinese writing abilities, I managed to get us to the main sales center, but not the ‘foreign sales office’ :P However, we lucked out, as Ken Fong the foreign sales manager was actually at the main office!! He had a pretty good grip on English and we were very impressed; no wonder he is the manager. He took us to see a few available apartments for rent, which first we had to get there by golf cart, as they were all located at phase 3, and we were at phase 1, which was quite a bit of a walk.

We were immediately impressed by the first apartment (which is the apartment we choose in the end), a 2 bedroom on the 11th floor. Then we were equally impressed by #2, which was a 3 bdrm on the 22nd floor, with somewhat better decor, which cost only $15o cdn more than the 2 bdrm. We saw a few more less costly ones, but in the end the first one won out, the second one was a close choice, but those of you who know J, he has issues with vertigo, and that one was just too high up, even I felt it a bit.

So after we decided, Ken called the property’s owner/manager, to arrange for a meeting time to sign documents and exchange payments/keys. We met up the next morning, and to our luck, it was an older couple who also spoke English, that were managing their son’s apartment, as the son was in California, and the couple lived closer, just in Macau. The couple are professors at Macau University, and the gentleman teaches computer graphics, so he and J hit it off immediately. Amazingly the process was fairly simple, reading over the contract in mostly English, then receiving bank account info as to where to deposit payments, going over the appliance and furniture check list, and voila, we were done! (okay there was also passport photocopying and running back and forth to bank to withdraw enough money for two months deposit and first months rent, as well as 1/2 month commission fee to the agent, etc…)

It sure feels surreal to have our own place to stay, which is only a couple years old, AND never lived in! We were to break in the new place :) Not bad for a new start in a new country I’d say.

As we exited the airport and were making our way by taxi to M’s place, it was a such a good feeling. It was familiar, yet unfamiliar, due to us having arrived last time by ferry from HK. Our journey had to take a detour due to some road work, and luckily it took us along the coast where we haven’t seen before. It was lush and green along parts that were close to the water, and where we went inland more, there were many fields where farmers were working. We took many deep breaths in to fully appreciate how beautiful this place was. Not before long, we were back into civilation, where mountains were blasted and excavated away, to make room for more developments and industry growth. Then came the industrial parks, where countless of local workers worked and lived; closer to the city center came the foreign companies and their buildings, large and modern. There seemed to be more car dealerships than we remembered last, which speaks of Zhuhai’s growth. Finally we came upon the bridges, which leads us into the city and it’s various neighbourhoods. The air quality gets a little less fresh, but it’s still way better than Shanghai. Familiar weaving and negotiating of cars teamed with honking amuses us. Pedestrians plays truth or dare with J walking and just plain crossing at the crosswalks with vehicles. This time around, it’s less stressful or alarming for us to be passengers in taxis, we mostly find it amusing, and try not to watch. Soon we approach the familiar tunnel though the BanZhan mountain, and we know that we are now close to arriving at M’s.

M is waiting for us outside the apartment gates, welcoming us and helping us with the luggage. She hasn’t changed much, other than for a new hair do and colouring of hair. Upon getting inside the apartment, she offers a plethora of food or things she can do for us… slippers, glass of water, do we want to go out to eat now, would we like fruit, we should sit, she can cook something, etc…; this is how a Chinese host guests, they must offer all they can do for the very important ’saving face’. I assure her that we are good as is, and wouldn’t mind just taking our own time to do our own thing to unpack and relax for a bit, and reassure again that should we need soemthing, we will definitely let her know. The reassurances sufficed, so we were left to our own devices. The only ‘demand’ we had was for dinner at home, and early to bed, as we were still fairly fatigued. M obliged and we all headed out to get groceries and the much needed beer. She made a wonderful casual dinner of pan sauteed greens, and hunan chicken (with red chilies and lots of garlic cloves). It was so good, a perfect end to a long day.

After dinner we chatted and caught up on the going ons with her life, and also watched kids outside from the balcony play. That’s one thing that we love about the complex she lives in, there are so many families with kids from 6 months to approx 7-8 years old (about the age of the complex). Every evening families come out with their one child and spend quality time outside where it’s cooler. I can see the deep love they have for their infants and toddlers, it’s simply beautiful. Funnily enough, I get an insight into my life. Chinese parents show their great love with ease when the children are young, but generally speaking, as they get older, they hide it more and more, as it’s viewed as being silly or babying. It gets to a point where it becomes hard for parents and kids to show any emotions to one another at times. Now I see it and understand better, why my father seemed more like a landlord when I was a teenager :P

Not before long, we were very sleepy, thus we bid goodnight, and proceeded to bed, though we first had to remove the bamboo tile mat, as we had horrific memories of it from the last trip.. not to mention waking up with tile imprints that lasts for hours. Air con on, then we were out like a light bulb.

Upon our taxi exiting off the highway and bridge, we wind our way in traffic downwards on a corkscrew off ramp, an interest sight to see. It becomes apparent to us that as we got closer and closer to the city that it is a mix of the old and the very new, as well as more and more heavily polluted.

With exhaustion on our brains, I felt a bit nauseous breathing in the exhaust fumes that got thicker and thicker while we worked out way through the traffic jam. Once off the ramp and onto a street leading to our hotel, it got a bit better, easier to breathe. As we drove through the old Shanghai area, we could see wonderful old buildings along The Bund, and in contrast behind it, modern new buildings. This area’s road was under construction so we hit another traffic jam, as the cab had to take a detour to get to our hotel.

After checking in, we were pleasantly aware of how quaint and lovely this hotel was. It used to be known as Richard’s Hotel orginally. With Victorian detailing and updated bathrooms, it was charming and comfortable. We showered and freshened up to meet up with my cousin Ben, who was taking us to downtown to get some really good Thai food, at Simply Thai. It was good. Then afterwards, we went over to the People’s Square, and walked in to get to Barbarosa, a restaurant/bar, popular hangout for expats, mainly French. It was pretty cool, with it’s Morrocan styled decor and terraces. My only horror was that a bottled water cost me $7!! And I couldn’t do with out it as the water in Shanghai is scary. The tap water is faintly yellow, very apparent when you run a bath, and it also smells of petrol or machine oil. After my mojito that night, my stomach gurgled all night. Then the next day for a mid-afternoon snack after a long 15+ km walk around town, we had instant bowl of noodle, but Jason forgot to use bottle water. Our soup smelled of petrol. Though we avoided drinking the soup, we both still felt somewhat ill from what ever chemical was in that water. After that, we both drank lots of bottle water to flush out our system, as we both got itchy skin and gurgly digestives from it.

On day two, we decided to walk our way around the downtown, as I mentioned about 15+km worth. We walked on The Bund, then down to Old Town, then to NanPing Road, then back to the Hotel. It was quite the feat I think, since we were still dealing with fatigue from the previous weeks. The saving grace was on the last third of our walking adventure, we really needed a break, but wasn’t so hungry, so we managed to miraculously be right across from the Radisson hotel, and so I suggested we go in for a drink. Ahhhhhhh…. after we sat down in it’s lobby lounge, and each had a couple of ice cold Asahi beer. After having been rejuvenated, we made our way home, after stopping in at a Lawson’s to grab some bowl of noodles.

After our return, we took a nice couple of hours nap. Had a noodle snack (uggghhh the water), showered up, then hooked up with Ben again at a sports bar to meet his friends for trivia night. It was fun. A great bunch of guys. We lasted till about 12:30am, then taxi’d it back to the hotel for a fabulous sleep, ready for the next trek to ZhuHai.

Photos from our Shanghai adventure here.

It’s hard to believe, after continuous days of working like mad on our move and fixing up our condo, it’s done. After seeing the last bits go into storage, I felt sick looking at our belongings stuffed in to where ever we could, and how much effort it was. Maybe it was the fatigue and residual stress speaking, but really I felt ill and void of emotion.

So 2 down, and 2 more to go (get to ZhuHai, then get set up). After having only gone to bed at 3:30am on Tuesday morning, we woke at 7:30am to get ready to head out to the airport. I had this nagging feeling that I needed to recheck the e-ticket, after having looked at it the previous morning amist the chaos of the last day of getting the loft ready for rental. To my surprise, I found out that I had read the wrong line on the e-ticket (which was not laid out as the normal sequence, bahhh) , and realized that the flight time was 50min sooner than had orginally thought. Luckily we were going with Air Canada, so when we go there at only 2 hr before flight time, there was barely a line up. Phew!

When we boarded the plane, we then found out the reason why it was so empty. A connecting flight didn’t make it, and it was so delayed that our flight wouldn’t wait for them. Due to this, we also lucked out with extra seats! Both Jason and I took our own rows, allowing us to actually get some much needed sleep. It was such a luxury! The only downside to our flight en route to Shanghai, was that we had the worst hot meals ever! And I really mean, EVER! Being such a foodie, it was really hard to eat what was put in front of us. My second meal, I chose pork over beef, and it turned out to be some pork head cheese or meatloaf with some brown gravy, over cooked broccoli and rice. Blechhh, it tasted of extra gaminess and lots of MSG for flavor. Then to top it all off, the seats did not have personal monitors for movie watching, as all other international flights tend to do. The food was absolutely mediocre, with even the cup of noodle they normally serve when nearing the end of the flight was done horribly. They couldn’t get hot enough water, so the noodles were barely ‘cooked’ still hard and the veggie bits were like leather. After having been pampered with internation airlines such as Cathay and JAL, Air Canada’s food and personal comfort rating would be low; but on the plus side, the staff was quite good, caring, personable, and conscientious… and the flight was purchased at discount.

Finally, we made it to Shanghai, after 12 or so hours on the plane. From there we managed to fit our two large suitcases and two small ones all into one cab, and made it to our fabulous heritage hotel… after witnessing some crazy driving and Shanghai traffic jam.

Here’s a picture en route to our hotel…

Hi everyone, sorry for being tardy in posting an update. In the coming days I will slowly get back on track with some posts to cover the last week or so. We’ve had lots of problems with the internet speed here in China, as internet connections outside of the country is very slow and problematic at times, much like a traffic jam. Outside of that, we’ve been busy trying to get settled here.

Posts to come:

En route to Shanghai
Shanghai: beauty and the beast
Return to ZhuHai, famaliar sights and sound
The search for new accomodations
Paradise found, well at least visually

ok. I think that should cover it all. It’s been quite the adventure, and J and I are surviving it all so far.