Moving

This is the Fenghua Police Station.

I thought Chenchen (our Domestic Sales Manager, you she's in the Shanghai photos) had my passport and other documents related to my work permit, but found out my passport has been here for three days and I won't get it back until Wednesday of next week. Having my passport, visa etc out of my possession like this makes me very uncomfortable, but I can't do anything about it now. I was sitting in an office with her and a girl came up to me and said in painfully articulated English, "hello, nice to meet you. Where have you been staying?". I get that all the time, "nice to meet you" as scooters drive by etc. If I hadn't been at a police station I probably would have quipped "我不认识你!"("but I don't know you.") She started mildly chiding me for not reserving my own room (the HR manager handled it) so the hotel could check my visa. I told her they had, but it didn't seem to matter to her. Oh well.

As I mentioned before the police say I have to move to Fenghua, which I don't mind at all. Friday night I went with the Chenchen, Hu Hui (the GM's wife who also works in domestic sales) and her small daughter to look at another apartment. It is right in the middle of Fenghua and is the most expensive place I've seen so far. It's twice as big as I can use, two bedrooms, an office, kitchen/dining room, laundry room, living room, the first bathtub I've seen since I got here and a sun room which would more accurately called 'laundry drying room' - I'm buying a dryer. It comes with all the furniture and appliances I need including two standard Chinese beds, basically a box spring with a thin quilt over the top and a straw mat of some sort that is usually discolored where it was been slept on - I'll be buying a mattress too (I feel like the princess from the fairy tale that had the pea under the stack of mattresses, or I'm probably seen that way). A middle aged couple lives there and are moving out now that I'm moving in. I think they own it and I couldn't figure out what the story was. It seemed I was the only one concerned with it. It is a whole 12,ooo RMB/year. It'll be available Sunday night. The outside of the building is stained from oxidation from the window grates (used for plants, drying and security on the floors) so it looks pretty bad. I've learned that the looks of the outside of the building and the inside rarely are consistant. Some buildings look great on the outside and are very bad inside inside. The woodwork etc isn't exactly my taste, maybe I should say 'dated' looking, but I'll just have to let that go.

I'll post some photos after I move in.