Move-In Day

Even though my lease doesn't start until June 3, my landlord was keen to letting me move in as soon as the lease was signed and he got his deposit so I planned with my RE agent to move in today. Our stuff from home isn't scheduled to be picked up until June 10 and will take 4-6 weeks to arrive so I have quite some time with an empty apartment. My RE agent advised that I need to get a bed.


I went to fight the crowd at Ikea this weekend and barely managed to get a cart with the bare necessities through the checkout line.

• Bed frame
• Mattress
• Sheets
• Blanket
• Pillows
• Towels

At one point I had a single serving set of plates and silverware but left that behind as the bag started getting heavy. Ikea charges $40 flat fee to deliver any order >$400 and they will deliver next day with your choice of three different time slots. At the delivery counter I gave him my address in pinyin and he said he needed it in Chinese. Luckily I had a photocopy of my ARC and he was able to pull the address off of that, otherwise, I may have been in trouble. I had my RE Agent, Hope's card with me so I gave them her info as a contact in case they needed to speak in Chinese.

I left the office at mid day as we planned to meet at the apartment at 2:00 to hand over the keys, go through the rundown of how the place works, get the bed delivered, and most importantly, get the internet set up! No TV, no landline, just internet. This weekend I also got a router at the Gangguan Computer Market which warrants its own separate post in the near future. I met Hope at the building and the internet guy was already. Hope set it up through KBRO. It's supposedly 10Mbit for $20/mo. So far I am getting actual results of 8Mbit so that's pretty impressive. Such bandwidth in the states at that price in unheard of.

When I arrived Hope asked where I parked and I told her I was at the commuter pay lot down the street and she questioned why I didn't park in the garage. I said, "You know it's not so simple that I can just drive that car into that garage..." She relented that I was right, as a radio signal device and a padlock stood in my way of getting into my parking spot at this point. We took care of the cable guy first; router was plug and play and he was done in all of five minutes. Trash and recyclables are on B1, my parking spot is on B2, and the gym/pool is closed on Mondays for cleaning. Those were the vital pieces of data.

Then the Ikea guys showed up. 6 pieces comprised 1 bed, 1 mattress. Hope asked, "Where's the rest of the stuff?" 

"In the United States."

"You guys can get by on so little stuff."

All I need for now is a bed, the means to shower, and internet.

Hope left and I hung out in the lobby to meet the landlord, get my official set of keys, and get access to the parking space. He brought his daughter to translate, she spent 4 years at University of Tennessee. I said, "So you're a Volunteer?" She said, "No. I actually am employed as a counselor." I was like, "No, no, no. Go Vols!" And she embarrassingly realized what I meant. If I had any reason at all to be suspicious of her credentials, I would have sworn there is no way she went to Tennessee.

We went up to the apartment and the landlord laid out this unbelievable set of keys. Granted there are some duplicates but there is the radio device for the garage, the mailbox key, a skeleton key for the apartment door which activates 4 bolts in series, a RFID scanner for the front door and elevator, a tuning fork thing to activate the panic button in the bedroom, and keys for each bedroom door in the apartment. Phew!

There is also this security system near the door where I can pick up a phone and a little video display shows live footage of the front door and I can talk to a guest at the door and buzz them up. There is a button to call the security desk and then the video display switches over to the security guard station. And there is...another panic button. The day shift security guard and the manager were actually very nice. They constantly laugh at everything like they are punch drunk. They probably ARE punch drunk.

After I finished with the landlord I got my car out of the lot and moved it into the basement at my building and hauled my Ikea accessories up to get started on the bed. I also picked up the FIX, at Ikea, which is every tool you need to assemble every piece of furniture at Ikea. Actually, I think you can construct an entire Ikea store from this tool kit.

It took about an hour to get the bed together and then I bolted over to the Shilin night market for something to eat. The night market will certainly get several blog posts of its own; you could actually write an entire blog on the essence of the night market.

Afterwards I had a nice comfy bed to jump in, though not much else. I technically am still in the other apartment for two more days though I'm hoping to gather my belongings and check out after work tomorrow. I actually now have three residences. If I could only sell one of them, I'd be in good shape.

Sunset provided some nice views from the apartment. We are up on the 8th floor.