別の外人

Right, so sorry for serious lack of updating... it's been an entire week, I'm frankly appalled with myself, although I understand why I haven't, everything has been so epically busy.

Last time I wrote, it was just coming up to the weekend. We ended up trying to go out, but as we didn't know where was good to go to, we ended up wandering for miles and miles (about 5/6 in total) looking in vain for a bar. Nothing special, just a bar... we eventually found a jazz bar, but drinks were about £7 so we were not impressed. We walked back to People's Square (this was Friday night), I wandered through the underground bit to get to my exit and went back to the hotel. I love that hotel, it's so gorgeous :D If only I could afford to live there permanently... well I say that but I do actually want to live proper Shanghai life, not just 'rich businessman/expat' life.

On Saturday, ended up having to wake up early (which was unpleasant since we were out late the night before) as I needed to catch John before he went away for a few days. Spoke to him and Claire, gave the kids their presents (Lara loved her doll, and Liam apparently liked his toy, but he didn't open it while I was there as he was sleeping) and then went to the apartment block to meet the landlord. I arrived there, and the landlord was not there... I was like WHAT as he said he'd be there at 1.30. I ended up getting lost trying to even find the block, as I'd only been there once before, and then when I found it I had to negotiate my way past about a million building sites and piles of rubbish/construction detritus. Got there, he wasn't there, and it was 1.33pm. Very unimpressed, I rang him:

Me: Where are you?
Him: I came, you weren't here so I left.
Me: But I'm 3 minutes late, why didn't you ring?
Him: You weren't here.
Me: How could you leave the building in 3 minutes?? It takes 5 minutes to leave it.
Him: Come back at 4pm.

... I didn't really have much choice in the matter. Connie and Nerys and everyone were going to the Carrefour, and I really wanted to go, but I had to now wait around for another 2 hours. I faffed around on this road, getting to know it all a bit better, went to the hotel where Adele was for an hour or so, played Phoenix Wright (now COMPLETED OH YEAH AS BECCA WOULD SAY 'I AM THE LIZARD QUEEN') which was ace, and then went back to the flat for 4pm. At 3.50pm, got a phone call:

Him: Where are you?
Me: I can see the apartment building.
Him: You need to be here now.
Me: Why? I said I'll be there for 4 to sign my contract.
Him: Oh, you're not doing that today, come back tomorrow for contract... today there is a man coming to change the locks, you need to be there. He's outside now.
Me: I'll be there in one minute...

... Got there, the locksmith only spoke Chinese and needed the keys to the flat... WHICH I DON'T HAVE. AGH. He seemed surprised I didn't have them, but as I was meant to collect the keys from the landlord today, it was a bit confusing and annoying. Passed my phone to the key guy... who also was a shit locksmith as locksmiths are meant to be able to open locks if you've lost the key. This guy was scared bout breaking the lock but we were meant to get a NEW LOCK. Made no sense... my new flatmates apparently came along later in the evening and gave the keys to the crappy locksmith.

That evening, went along to the hotel on campus for a bit, before going back to the hotel for my final night there... so sad, but I was only registered with the police to live there until Monday anyway, so only miss out on one night. Packed, and went to bed at about 1am.

The next day, got up at 8am, brought my massive suitcase (only half full though) to the metro station, slid it under the ticket turnstile, dragged it onto the metro, up stairs the other side, then wheeled it along for the 20 minutes until I got to the flat. When I arrived, my flatmates were there who gave me the keys to the flat, and I started to doss around until the landlord arrived at about 10am. I went through the contract with a fine toothcomb, made sure he had filled in all the specifics himself before I signed it (even though he told me to sign it first, I was NOT having that), specified my terms, negotiated the price, reminded him of what I still needed, and after all that, gave him the money and received a receipt for my payment. I now have an apartment :D

It's pretty nice, my mattress is rather hard (though it's softening up now after having friends come over all week), bathroom isn't very clean and I didn't have my sofa chair when I moved in (though I have it now), but otherwise it's good. Went to the hotel again, the others came round and helped me pick up my stuff to take it to my new flat. After that, me and my flatmates had to go locate a police station as you only have 24 hours to register with the police after arrival (although they had illegally been here for a week), and we tried so many places...
Place A: Really small, full of smoke, 3 people inside who all wittered at me in Shanghainese, said I couldn't register here, wrote an address down in very messy writing.
Place B: We couldn't read the address, so we tried the police station on campus, but we weren't allowed to register there.
Place C: Was near Shanghai stadium and we got a taxi from campus to this one, it cost 22 kuai which means it was about 4/5 miles away. We were on the right road, but this police station wasn't right.
Place D: Other end of the road, was the correct place :D Though just getting the residence permit was hard...

When we arrived, we got constantly redirected from room to room, it can't be that hard surely, every single foreigner has to do this ffs!! Eventually arrived, told they were shut for lunch so we sat down and waited... then this random woman entered, told us in Chinese that the other woman was the Chief of Police of this section and that we needed to go with her. We needed to have a photocopy of our passport, a photocopy of our visa, our temporary residence form from a previous hotel, our passport, our visa, a form from SJTU, a copy of the contract we signed, a copy of the landlord's contract, a copy of the landlord's residence permit and a copy of the landowner's ID. So much stuff... I ended up making friends with the Chief's 7 year old daughter who was fascinated by the fact I was Western, had never met anyone Western before, and liked my Chinese name. I gave her an old train ticket I found in my purse, which was from Bath Spa to Chippenham, so she ran off to show her mum, who came back in, said a few words to me in Chinese and then decided not to charge my flatmates the fine of 500RMB (£50) a day for every day that registration was overdue. They were pleased about this! At the end of all that, got my passport and this document with a stamp on it back, and I couldn't even keep it, as I had to hand it in the following day at my medical in order to try and obtain my year long residence permit and try and extend my visa.

After that, went to Shanghai Indoor Stadium metro station by metro to meet Jennie, as we both needed to go to IKEA. I bought some pillows, a duvet cover, a lamp, but I still need to go and buy a bin, another pillow and some lightbulbs... Yes I forgot to buy lightbulbs. I'm special... I thought there were lightbulbs in it but no of course not. That night, went to bed about midnight in my new flat, as I had to wake up early the next day to be on campus for 8am to go for our medical.

My first week of class will be in the next update :)