I woke up around 2 am this morning and job hunted online until about 8:30 . Then John and I went down the street to our favorite little pancake vendor. Three egg pancakes and one onion pancake later (wedged on croissants), we were stuffed. In the afternoon, we signed the lease for our apartment—another 3+ hour long process. Earlier I had faxed the contract to my parents for translation services so this morning, we were fully prepared with an itemized list of add-ons. Including a statement that rental was contingent on the availability of high-speed internet. Ultimate tight-asses! Afterwards, the real estate office sent two reps with us to set up a bank account and set up the cable modem. Obviously, we weren’t expecting them to escort us and totally hook us up… but they did anyway, in the rain and cold! It was awesome having our own little team of assistants to get us on the inside track. Tomorrow morning, we’re handing over the third month’s prepaid rent, getting the keys and the cable company is coming to install the cable modem (next day service… can’t beat that!). Just in time for Yeb and Nai, who arrive in the evening.
The picture of John to the left shows a building facade where the “bricks” were handpainted on. The entire wall was originally gray and then painters added the red accents and used white paint to mimic the mortar between the bricks.
Well the deal on the apartment fell through today. The landlord who lives in Japan decided a 6-month lease wasn’t worth the trouble. Disappointing but I did think it was a tad small… so we spent the entire evening viewing more properties. Walked all over the damn place in the cold. I’m talking frost-bite/numbing cold. The real estate process in Shanghai is kind of tedious. They don’t use lockboxes. So every viewing has to be coordinated with the landlord, and since all of the properties are vacant and traffic here is ridiculous, you end up blowing another 10-20 minutes waiting for the landlord to show.
For one of the properties on our list, the landlord told us to get the key from his friend. So we get there, and our agent starts ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door for about 10 minutes straight. John and I start laughing because to us, it’s obvious no one is home. The agent finally calls the landlord again and instead of saying no one is home (that would challenge the landlord’s information), the agent says innocently, “I’m ringing the doorbell and the door isn’t opening.” The landlord calls his friend again and calls us back, saying his friend is in the apartment. So apparently, the guy’s in there and he hasn’t heard the continuous chime of the doorbell and the repeated knocking?? The agent resumes his irritating sequence of chiming and pounding… and then finally we hear a woman say she’s coming. But then the door opens and it’s a guy in gym clothes with wet hair. He gives our agent the key and says to drop it in the mailbox afterwards. Do NOT return it to him, he stresses. Just drop it in the box. Hmm, I think I know why no one was coming to the door…
After a full evening of trekking around XuHui District, we ultimately decide on a 2 BR apartment upstairs from the real estate agent’s office (the first unit we saw that night, of course). It isn’t two minutes to the metro as we had originally wanted but there is so much construction in the area immediately surrounding the metro that we figure this will be okay. We’re only signing a six month lease.
We started up early today. Had a very tasty non-Chinese breakfast at a coffee place. We just couldn’t resist waffles, eggs, toast, and ham. Been booking our butts around town in search of apartments so we rewarded ourselves with a hearty breakfast. We met up later with our realtor Johnnie Lo (whom we met in September) and his staff took us to 4-5 properties in Xujiahui district, near the well-known Jiao Tong University. We checked out a range of places, priced from $4000 kuai (8.2 Chinese yuan: 1 USD) to $6500 kuai. Finally settled on a modest apartment in prime district location. 2 BR/1 BA, 2nd floor. The furniture is a little funny with random music prints, but John and I are certainly no HGTV watchers so it’s all good. and we get a piano! So the deal was nearly done except we spent the rest of the day (Saturday) searching for a bank to convert our supposedly convenient, as-good-as-cash traveler’s checks. Here, most transactions are done in cash so we needed 3 month’s rent up front for the lease. Went to about 8 or 9 banks. None would take the damn checks. Got Visa on the cell phone, no luck still. So the deal stalls until Monday (most banks are closed Sunday). What a frickin’ pain. But we are very excited to finally have a place… time to get the doggies back. The good thing is that this extra time buys me time to fax the contract over to my parents for translation services. Now hopefully the landlord won’t rent the place to another before Monday morning.
In typical Gou fashion, grandfather Yeb’s Suburu station wagon was all packed and ready to go the night before our big day—an oversized body bag strapped to the rack above, and two flattened dog crates and three 70-lb. suitcases crammed in the back. I squeezed into the backseat with Remy and Martin. Somehow they knew this was no ordinary car ride to the DP (dog park but don’t let them hear you say it!).
Per my parents’ suggestion (i.e. order), we arrived at Dulles three hours early… even though the airline had recommended only 2 1/2 hours. The skycap helped load all our belongings, and we hurried inside (it was extremely windy) to set the dogs up in their crates. After arranging the water bottles and food cups on their cages just right and applying all the necessary stickers, the manager came by and said, “We can’t let you take these crates.” Say that again?? I had spent HOURS researching crates for international travel—they had to have vents on four sides, needed to provide x inches beyond the dogs’ dimensions, had to have the solid floor, absorbent bedding, etc. These were supposed to be approved for international travel! Not by United. Our fold-able crates were considered unsafe. What can you do: first day out, not even onto the flight and we had a glitch. Fortunately, United had approved crates for sale. Problem solved and we got the babies on board. Sadly, I was forced to part with my super-cool fold-able contraptions. At least United donates the reject crates to a local shelter.
Security at Dulles was a breeze. I have to say, it’s quite painless once you get beyond the line at the ticketing counter. I was thinking of the pups during take off and landing. Fortunately, they emerged relatively okay on the other end. Martin had an accident and both were panting and somewhat distracted. But after a few minutes, they had forgiven us and we were given the wagging tails approval. Two vans transported us to the Red Roof (always clean, cheap and dog-friendly), and that night the pups drank a lot of water (I don’t think they ever figured out the water bottle setup) and slept like babies in the king-sized bed.
San Francisco Stayover
At SFO, the security process is dreadfully inefficient. We had a tough time getting the pups into their crates this time– we practically had to shove Martin in. The flight from SFO to PVG was killer. 13:30 hours, with a one hour delay (of course). We watched about six movies (including the horrible Charlie’s Angels 2) and still had plenty of time to spare.
Arrival in Pudong, Shanghai
We arrived at Pudong at 8pm Thursday evening. No pictures here of course. John would like to thank United airlines for the Irritable Bowel Syndrome (He chose Beef, and chose poorly) while waiting in line for customs. Thanks for making that such a memorable experience. 🙂 Though there are not many pictures to document the long and enduring journey from East Coast to Far East, these are the few that were recovered. All in all, we watched a total of about 6 movies during the flights, and still had extra time to belly-ache about the long flight and nasty salad greens.
Once our visa paperwork was accepted, we went to the baggage claim area. It wasn’t long before Remy and Martin came cruising along. Once we got them off the conveyor belt, the pet importer rep quickly located us. Thank goodness for Jialiang Kennels. They met us in the baggage area upon arrival, zipped us and the dogs through customs (the paperwork was taken care of while we waited for baggage!!) and off we were to the kennel… which ended up being about 40 minutes away. But the facility is awesome– an animal lover’s paradise with hundreds of dogs, plus cats, pigs, rabbits, and 40 horses (it’s an equestrian center too).
We left the pups and headed out to our hotel in two taxis—I wrote down all the taxi driver license numbers and plate numbers and started thinking up an escape plan just in case (see what happens when you have paranoid parents?). We arrived safely at the Howard Johnson’s downtown—this ridiculously posh place with a 20 ft xmas tree and monster gingerbread house in the lobby. They don’t even celebrate xmas in china. Oh well, at least the room was clean, the bed was soft, and we had our high-speed internet.
