Mike In China

Today was ridiculous. Absolutely a nightmare. We spent the day looking at apartments. Last night we looked at all the cheaper places further down the subway, and they were a ton nicer than what we expected and what we lived in in Zhuhai. Then Phoebe convinced us to look at more places today on a further up subway stop just to look. Ridiculous. These places were amazing, very western, super pimp and deece views. Funniest part was that we had multiple real estate agents following us around all day trying to show off their own apartments in different complexes. We had a fuckin Asian Team of people finding us apartments. So we found one that we wanted that was a price that we could afford with pretty sweet views. Will was still hesitant about paying so much and he wanted the places we found before so there was some discussion, but we decided to go for it. The discussions started with the real estate agent and somehow something came up about not having the right papers… SKETHCY. We said that’s not ok, we are not doing anything that might be slightly illegal blah blah blah fake papers are not ok, we heard stories about Americans being put in jail for that shit, we are not signing contracts with out the right papers. Then Phoebe mentions, oh by the way, the apartment on the 27 floor of the building that you guys fell in love with and was your first choice but didn’t want to pay that high of a price for, oh they offered it to me for your price. SO NOW, we have the mother fucking penthouse for the price of the place without papers. 6,500 RMB per month = $812 USD per month aka $270 per person per month for our own bedroom downtown with views of the buildings you see on postcards. Any friend I have ever had that doesn’t come visit should kill themselves. And can I quickly mention the fact that everyone here smokes like chimneys. It’s disgusting. I have had to wear my glasses these past two days because my eyes hurt. And I have so much more to tell about how teaching is going to be. Not to mention I start teaching on Monday morning, five classes of 2^nd grade students. I plan to take a video tour or the apt and posting it, so let me know what you think. After everything we went back to the all you can eat sushi and all you can drink beer and sake place. Still absolutely amazing.