Apartment Hunting

Saturday we awoke at 4AM and spent the morning lounging and reading our books. I am in the middle of James Clavell’s Asian Saga. The setting and many characters in the 6 books are based on actual events. I am on the 3rd book, Gai-Jin, set in Japan in 1862 which means “foreigner” in Japanese. The books have given me some insight into the culture and lives of Asian people. Mike is reading High Crimes: Mt Everest in the Age of Greed by Michael Kodas, generously lent to us by my brother.

At 10AM we met with Yi Ling who is the wife of a teacher at TAS who showed us several apts. The first being a 5th floor walk up with 2 stories and 2 large balconies. It was very modern and clean but full of furniture the landlord did not want to remove meaning no place for our things and no room to collect artifacts from future travels. The next several places did not suit us either. The last place which was on the 7th floor, had an elevator, security guard, and splendid views of the river and park was more our style. When you entered there is a small entry way with room for a table and chairs or bikes and the one great room. The landlord is planning to divide this space into 3 creating 2 smaller bedrooms and a larger living area. Currently there is one bedroom, living room, 2 baths and modern kitchen. This is the one we liked over all.

We then had lunch at Sabbah’s which serves Middle Eastern food. The place was opened by a retired TAS teacher many years ago. It was excellent food and one of the few menus we could read so far.

At 2:30 we met with George to look at a few more places. These were all walkups with no outside space so we decided to rent the last one we saw with Yi Ling. Not bad for us only, we only looked at 11 places. We met the landlord at 6:15PM and went over our list of repairs and wants. She was very kind and agreed to everything. She has never rented before and was nervous about how we would keep the place.  It will take a week or so to paint, add air conditioners, remove furniture, and make general repairs. Hopefully our shipment will be here soon so we can use this time to setup our new home. We are going to see how it goes with one bedroom and the great room before decide to have the walls erected to make smaller rooms. Company is of course still welcome and we will figure out beds at a later date.

8PM we met Erin, another newbie, for supper. We entered several restaurants and none had English menus. After 35 minutes of walking and looking for a place to eat. We ended back at Sabbah’s because we had to met the landlord at 9:30 to sign the lease and pay the 1st of 3 down payments. Tried different food choices and got a frequent diner card. Mike is relieved to know there is food he can eat within walking distance. If you know Mike this is pretty funny as he had never eaten a falafel, chic pea, humus, tzatziki, or tahini before Egypt.

Got back to the apartment at 11PM and headed straight to bed feeling relieved we will have our own place soon.