Full house

When I first looked at this place I’m living in now, there was only one person and I didn’t see her for at least a week.  Now, all four rooms are full and two out of the three other ladies speak English.  I’m so lucky!

On Saturday, I did the final bulk of my moving which consisted of calling a taxi and packing it full of all the big things and some bags on sticks like a hobo.  When I had hauled everything upstairs and begun re-arranging, my landlady came down from her apartment to see what was going on.  She seemed a little concerned with the liberties I was taking with her furniture and flooring (I pulled up the previous tenants’ awful foam puzzle floor), but that might just be her face…

Just a few minutes later, the new chatty girl came home and we started to talk.  She had brought two flats of strawberries and so we stood around and ate them in the hallway as they asked me questions and talked about housing matters.  The chatty girl is 42, I believe, so girl is not the right word even though she is quite girlish.  Because of her age and the age of the other tenant, they were quite amazed at the daring that brought such a child to their doorstep.  How did my mom feel?  She’s visited me; she’s okay with it.  Did I have a boyfriend?  At my answer, they immediately got a little fluttery as they brought up the landlady’s sons, neither of whom is married.

Long story short, yesterday Mrs. Lin gave me some bananas and grape juice, and this evening she brought me a plate of really awesome dumplings.  I think I’m betrothed, you guys.

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Movin’ on up (to the west side!)

I put a reservation deposit of 500元 on my room today, and I am most pleased with my choice!  I love the street I’m on (lane, rather) and I love the park at the end of it and I think I like the landlady and her son.  The fact that I’m 3 minutes from an MRT station and probably 30 minutes walk from work doesn’t hurt at all!  Plus, I have a window.

Are you surprised that a window is a thing to be celebrated?  Let’s talk about housing in Taipei.  Unless you want to spend a lot of money, you’re looking at renting single rooms, rather like three-quarters of my college life.  Many people take a normal apartment and spit it up, the classier places using real walls, and the others using particle board and the like.  No joke: there’s a field on the most popular housing site in Taiwan to state what the room’s walls are made of.  Once that charming distinction is out of the way, there are two kinds of rooms: 套房 and 雅房.  The first group, taofang, comes with an en suite bathroom.  Yafang (the second) do not.  Another interesting feature of these places is that the kitchens are often partial or non-existent.  The one I have chosen has a kitchen space, but no real cooking appliances.  This is a step up from the other place I saw that had just a fridge at the end of the hall.

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Since I haven’t moved in yet, I have only pictures of the outside that I took when I first went to see the place.  I can only reiterate how charmed I am by the street and how perfectly it fits my picture of Taipei City life.

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Reflections on New Year’s Eve

It’s now 2011 and I had a good time ringing it in.  I don’t think I did anything remarkable for 2010, but I know that from my freshman year of college to my senior year, I had decidedly limited New Year’s Eves due to the Rose Parade.  Since 2011 marks the 100th year of the Republic of China, I set my mind to seeing a spectacle, and in spite of all the warnings, I went into the city with my roommates.

They had an idea to take the bus to a key MRT intersection and find a club or bar, but I was going to see the fireworks at 101, no question about it.  They decided that it wasn’t a bad idea, and we rode the bus, going slower and slower as we approached the road closures around Taipei 101 and the city hall.

While on the bus, we noticed the masses of people streaming past us, often faster than the traffic, so we knew that it would be as crowded as people said, but once off the bus, the feeling of an oppressive and too-dense crowd never really kicked in.  Not until the fireworks were over was it even crowded in a bad way, and even then it was still pretty orderly.

Favorite moments:

• seeing the night sky as starry dark blue with sparse clouds instead of as an orange haze as it’s recently seemed in Xinzhuang
• using a squat porta-john (most pleasantly fragrant portable toilet I’ve ever encountered)
• walking right down the middle of Zhongxiao E. Road, a main thoroughfare
• cramped and undoubtedly freezing belly dancers on the smallest stage in the world
• crowd control in a 7-11 and my resulting grapey-vodka drink (I forgot how much I liked grape juice!)
• waiting around and seeing the various ways people were occupying themselves
• counting down the New Year in Chinese, which was disappointingly difficult and made me sympathize with the kindergarten kids I have made do this in the past
• the excellent fireworks all around the 101 area and up and down the building itself
• guarding my alley-peeing roommates and almost slipping off the curb playing with a sparkle-stick I had found on the way to said alley
• witnessing an engagement or even extremely casual wedding go down on the median
• walking 5 MRT stops but getting good seats and then taking an affordable and comfortable taxi home,  frequently recognizing what I thought would be an unfamiliar area

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The house is a home

I didn’t know until at probably middle school that mechanics were considered crooks, or at the very least, untrustworthy and shady.  My dad was always the helpful hero, magically diagnosing and fixing people’s car problems, so when I found out the common perception, I was shocked.

That said, I don’t think I’m going to rock anyone’s world with this observation: movers are the worst!  After some searching, one of my coworkers helped me arrange a really excellent and clearly outlined deal.  When they arrived, they tried to play us for fools and more than double the price because they didn’t “know they would need the big truck.”  We clarified and explained and bargained, and eventually kicked them out.  I should add that the boss of the pair was a stereotype to end all stereotypes: sweaty, ratty shirt, betel nut teeth, flabby gut…

Fortunately, we found another place who was more expensive but upfront about it and just plain personable.  The two guys were strong and fast and very jokey, and even though they upped the price by 200 NT, I really didn’t begrudge them it.  It was also kind of cool because they were Hakka, and if I had known earlier, I would have asked for a few words.

We had hoped to start moving at 11, but nothing actually got to my house until 4, and things weren’t settled and completed for another few hours after that.  As it is, I’ve still got a lot to do tomorrow, but at least I’ve got a much prettier home to do it in!

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My new place

I’m fully moved in to my new apartment, which means I have one couch, one bed, one blanket (Irma, it’s called Irma!!!  That’s the main reason I bought it), two suitcases, one computer bag, and one duffel full of dirty clothes.

After some shopping with Rebecca today, I also have a new purse and some facewash, but tomorrow is when I plan to do the heavy lifting.  IKEA’s going to deliver a desk chair and a dresser, and I’m also going to run to Carrefour for hangers and towels and FOOD.

In between all of this, I’m going to be reading as much as possible for the 24-hour Read-a-thon!  I rarely need an excuse for this kind of thing, but I’m going to be using it as mandatory relaxation in the midst of getting my apartment ready for real habitation.  Fun times!

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Contract

Today I signed a lease for a year. You guys, this is serious now.

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Tentative excitement

Oh, I hesitate to get too worked up since I haven’t signed the lease yet, but I think I have a place!  About $450/mo for 2 bedrooms, 1.5 – 2 bathrooms, “security” (which means garbage service and a gate and camera), and an office.  It has the potential to be as good as my New Mexican house, which I still occasionally mourn.

I will update as I learn more!

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Hearth and home

Still working on the home part, but I cooked myself a cute and pretty tasty dinner tonight.  I thought I’d share, in the spirit of moderate pride that I made something cute and good, and also poking fun at my good friend Caroline.  Do you read this, Care?

Today after class (and after grading homework), I stopped by a rental agents’.  No one spoke English, but they got someone on the phone to translate (she spoke to me and IMed the realtor–very cool!) and within 10 or 15 minutes I was out the door with Mr. Zhou to see a place.  It was not too bad, especially considering the rent hike in Xinzhuang due to the planned MRT line.  It was also pretty unique because studios are hard to come by here (I don’t know why), and if you can find them, it’s usually more like what I had in college with a shared living space and kitchen, but private room and bathroom (called a tàofáng).  Come to think of it, that’s more than I had in college!

I told the agent in my busted Chinese that it was not bad but not great, and we finally understood each other that I wanted yī fáng yī tīng (one bedroom, one living room) and a kitchen.  As soon as I said it, I remembered the housing unit in Chinese class and was a little frustrated with myself, but since we basically understood my needs, it was a success.  We parted ways in the lobby with a promise from him to call tomorrow, and I went to hunt down the realtor Rebecca and Steve helped me find.

It was almost not to be.  Because of the location of the potential studio, I took a very different way home and thought I was doing pretty well, but then I crossed the river and psyched myself into turning too soon.  It was a very pleasant exploratory walk for all that it took place in a heavy rain shower, but it served to remind me that I was not at home here yet.  This sounds depressing, but it was really more exhilarating than anything else.

Fortunately, when I found my way back to a main street I was familiar with, I hadn’t yet reached the first rental agency.  As I came up to it, I caught my realtor about to leave and asked him to call me tomorrow.  With any luck, I’ll have a good variety of places to look at tomorrow!

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Housing envy

I had a fun night tonight, on which I will elaborate tomorrow, but I must first bitch about my roommate’s amazing good fortune.  She is going to a city very near mine and living just across the river off the MRT.  She’ll be living with two other teachers at her branch, and the place they have is amazing.  Since they’ve been living there for a while, it’s fully furnished and nicely decorated, and it has a washer and a dryer.  The floors are wood instead of tile or linoleum, and the ceilings are lofty.  High speed internet is included and utilities only come to 1000NT each month, and that’s with 4 air conditioners.  Not only that, but the girl she’s replacing left her the keys to her old scooter.  Holy dang!

Meanwhile, I’ve only seen three places, none of which was furnished with anything (including AC and fridges), and one of which was already rented.  I feel like my management is not trying very hard, probably because my head teacher has a furnished empty room where I can stay until I find something else.  Conflict of interest?!?!  It’s not like it’s a bad place, but he’ll be moving out in August and I don’t want to take over the lease, and I think it would be irritating to move after 6 months, especially since I just did it in September.

The plan is to look around on Monday at some more places, but I think they’ve resorted to an agent, which means I have to pay a fee of 1/2 a month’s rent to the agent.  This is not ideal, but I don’t really know what else I can do.  Maybe my friends in Danshui can help me out since she speaks Chinese and he’s a native…

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Busy day!

For a day that was supposed to be a break day, I sure got a lot done yesterday!

I had arranged a few days before to go out to Xinzhuang and meet my head teacher and look for apartments, so I started my day a little later than normal with a taxi ride over the river and into Xinzhuang with my new boss André.  My first impression of the city was very favorable, since it was a beautiful day and I rode on the back of a hot guy’s scooter all day.  I hadn’t intended to get a scooter, but I think one will be up for sale soon at my branch, and I’ll probably buy it, especially since it’ll only be about $300 dollars.  SCOOTER!

So then we looked at places, and options are not amazing so far, which I will get to in another entry.  I saw my future workplaces and watched a class of 7-year-olds, which was both reassuring and terrifying.  Then I took a bus to Taipei Main Station (took about 20 minutes during rush hour) and rode the MRT up to hang with Rebecca.  She helped me buy a phone (it’s pretty nice!) and get everything activated, and then we walked around and eventually wound up at her place.  It was great to just hang out in someone’s house instead of being in training or being in a hotel; almost as good as having my own place.

Eventually, I had to head back because of training in the morning and the fact that the last subway runs at midnight.  There are many wonderful things about the MRT, but that is not one of them.  Another thing that sucks about the MRT and Taipei maps in general is that they do not always orient north, which means a lot of mental rotation and reading in Chinese, two things I am not good at.  Nevertheless, I made it back to the hotel safe and sound, despite the fact that it was about midnight.  What a chill city!

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