Pushbrk's informal visit blog

[beejay 123]

Congrats on passing your driving test. I'm about halfway through a book about an expat who got his license in China in '01 and drove around the country with a rented car and a "Sinomaps book". Your experience reminded me of the first chapter when he talks about going to get his license in Beijing. He included some sample questions in the book - quite a few of which were pretty funny. He says however that native Chinese needed a medical checkup and enrollment in a technical course before they could take their 2 day driving test and written exam. I had been wondering how much the process has changed and how the country has been affected since, what he described, as the beginning of the middle class driving boom. So It was nice to read about your experience and have a more recent comparison of the process.

[pushbrk 12,105]

So we finally took the plunge and put money down on a house. It's a strange process, I mostly just watch. I was a full participant in the search and decision but my wife is buying the home in only her name, so once the decision was made, it's really all about her and what she needs to do. We settled on the next to the last development we visited. It's just the right size for us but my wife was leaning towards a less desirable, cheaper per square meter home in a complex across the street. I convinced her the view and quality were worth the extra money and the extra space was simply not needed. Now we'll look over the pool and expansive grounds toward the signature buildings of the complex instead of the visitor parking lot.

"House" equals "condo" for those not in the know. One of my criteria in evaluating complexes and developers is the restrooms in the expansive, lavishly furnished sales offices. They range from the normal smelly, leaking plumbing to the average and on to the four star hotel conference facility restrooms. The complex of second choice was the low end of the scale while the one we selected was the best of them all. It tells me something about how the developer will manage the property going forward. We can't take possession until May 2012 and it will be at least two or three years after that before the complex is entirely finished.

Ours is a 115 square meter, three bedroom, two bathroom unit with two "decks". One, strangely is designed as the entry way. We'll close it in and put a "utility closet" like you might find in a modern US apartment, for the washer and dryer. The rest of the 4X4 meter space in the entry will be an entryway, storage and shoe/slipper swapping spot.

There are always trade-offs. The one thing I don't like is that we'll have to drive 3-400 meters from the underground garage entrance to get to any parking spots near the elevator to our building. We can buy the parking spot next year. Strange concept but that's how it's done. Another strange criteria is the ratio of elevators in the building to "families". Our building is said to have two elevators for four families. In reality, there are 17 residential floors with four homes each, so it's really 4 elevators for 68 families but that's NOT how they express it.

Another plus for our location is that we are just two floors over and virtually directly above the security office, the main entrance and office for the complex and the swimming pool. The view will be nice but both of us like the security of being a BAD place for the "pilfer man" to ply his trade.

My wife has done an amazing amount of paperwork, all with original signatures and red thumb prints by the dozens. The bank will take two months to close the loan and give the money to the developer, even though we've already provided a 30% down payment. Me being involved would have just been too complicated, so I'm the driver. No accidents yet.

[gyi 1]

A friend of mine bought a condo also, in XingTai, sounds a lot like the one you bought except I think it has five bedrooms, up and down also, not to rain on either of your purchases though a few years ago two of these condo buildings fell over, it seems they were not anchored with a foundation just sat there, another problem is the concrete is not allowed to cure properly, making these buildings porous leading to wet interior walls and the problems associated with that wetness.

[pushbrk 12,105]

So, I'm making spaghetti sauce using tomatoes, because the only "tomato sauce" in Nanning is actually Ketchup. It's tasting pretty good. Forgot I didn't have any Parmesan cheese, so had to run out to the local "English Corner" restaurant, called "Just for You" to buy a small "can" of it. You know the cardboard little thing from Kraft. Anyway, while we park in front in this little alley, the owner tells me I should park in back next time. I say we're going to be there less than a minute. Truth is, I know there's a back door and some parking but haven't a clue how to get to the entrance alley to back into the place.

The "manager" is telling my wife the little green buckets half a meter from the curb are really covering some hard stones, so watch out for them. A customer tells me others have already torn up their cars on them. I say, "I have no intention of running into them." and he says, "So obviously you're not a Chinese driver." I don't get it. They are obviously a barricade to protect motorcycles parked at the curb, so why would ANYBODY run into them, particularly when LEAVING the curb to cross to the right side of the street. I'm guessing the "manager" doesn't drive a car. Oh well. Looking forward to dinner. Wish we had some good bread to go with it.

[pushbrk 12,105]

Further on the house. My wife informs me she called the bank and all is set. We had some heartburn last week because they wanted a document that was not "legitimately obtainable". My wife was all worried about it for some reason. Turns out it was quite obtainable (a document attesting to something not actrually true" and with no more effort than a phone call and taking a friend to talk to a friend about it. Looks like we start making payments in May.

If wondering how, we just leave money behind in China and my wife's brother puts more in as needed. His money is deducted from what he sends us to pay his daughter's school expenses, so no actual money is getting exchanged in connection with the house payment. What isn't needed for the house, gets wire transferred to our account for his daughter. She's not the most responsible, so HER account is joint with my wife and we xfer money to her as needed and approved.

We've extended our return from Saturday to next Tuesday the 12th. United stopped operating any legal connection from LAX to SEA on Saturday evenings, so Air China was good enough to reroute us to SEA through SFO. It's a better itinerary and gets us home at a decent hour. Tried to get them to reroute us to or through Vancouver, Canada but some revenue sharing issues prevented that. Vancouver is a lot closer to our home than Seattle.

My wife really misses our 18 month old Beagle, Duke. She says, "I really miss my Duke." and I reply, "You miss, MY Duke."