2007-07-25 almost feeling like home

We came to Qingdao last week and found it to be a much more comfortable city to be in - it's a mid sized city by the ocean, so it's more relaxed and much cooler than Shanghai. We stayed in a dump the first night. I booked it over the internet - it looked nice. But only when we got there, we knew we couldn't stay there for long. It's in a nice looking commercial building but the hallway stunk. Then the bathroom is a little bigger than 1 sqm with the shower head right above the toilet. When I showered, the drain didn't go down much so it flooded, with water going between the door slit into the room.

We gave in to a conventional hotel the next day. We spent three days looking for an apartment. It turned out it's very hard to find a furnished place for short term. Some places are spacious and nice inside, but in market areas that smell like rotten vegetables. We finally narrowed down to two places, both near the beach and has ocean view. One is much bigger than the other but less clean and more expensive. It took us another day of contemplating to decide to take the studio, the smaller of the two, in a cleaner building.

We went back to Shanghai to pick up the remainder of our luggage (Brent's books and hardware etc). They only allow 20kg per person within China, so we got a hefty fine. Shanghai was so hot that we didn't go anywhere. Brent tried to get money out of a Chinese bank but it ate his card for a while then eventually spit it out. We then took a bus to this large mall where there is Citibank and HSBC. Citibank gave him an error and then we went to HSBC machine in Carrefore, it ate his card! We called the number and they said our bank indicated something was wrong with his card and they couldn't return it to him! We were going to go to Bar Rouge which a friend recommended to see the night view of Bund, but we were worried that we would have trouble getting cash in the future so we'd better budget ourselves. In any bank that allows foreign cards to get money, the max for the day is 3000RMB - about $420. And we can't necessarily find a bank that takes foreign cards everyday.

We flew back to Qingdao last Saturday and moved into our apt smoothly. We spent the next few days cleaning. The landlords didn't clean much even though it's a nice apartment.

We enjoy the sea breeze occasionally in our apt and we take walks often to the boardwalk (actually cement walk and no beach). Loads of tourists come here everyday as this is the escape for summer for many Chinese. We can see the harbor where the Olympics sailing competition will be held next year from our window. I bet the rent is even worse next year.

We tried to extend our visa while in Shanghai. We had to go to the "ENTRY-EXIT bureau". After we spent money to take the visa photos, and filled out the forms, and waited in line, we were told that we had to have a temporary residence permit from the local police station. We had never heard of such a thing before but the lady said it's required for all foreigners. I asked a woman who had a Singapore passport what this was - she said it is required if you stay in private residences. If you stay in a hotel, they have already registered you and the police do checkups.

So after we moved in, we called the police station but the person who's in charge wasn't in till Monday. She turned out to be very nice and reasonable. We got that done smoothly and she kindly introduced us to the police who's in charge of our area, so that if we are in any sort of trouble in the future, we talk to him. Hopefully not.