Moving to Shanghai

Quick Note: I'm sure my readers have noticed that there has been a discrepancy in the timing of my posts, meaning that I did not make any posts from January to August; this is because my computer died, and I was not very inclined to continue to make blog posts from my phone. Thus, all of my posts from here on out will be detailing my experiences from January onward!

     Hi all! In this blogpost, I plan to outline my experience moving to Shanghai, i.e. finding housing and settling in and will give more detail about my internship in a future post!

     First off, moving to Shanghai was no easy task. My program offered no assistance to help me find places to live in Shanghai, so I had to start from square one. Luckily, I had some friends in Shanghai who had moved there two months prior, and were willing to connect me with a few real estate agents in the area. 

     However, for those who are looking to move to any city in China who are looking for a place to live and do not have realtor connections, do not fear! Lianjia (连家）is a very prevalent real estate company with locations all throughout China. Just drop into the store most convenient for you to get to and their employees can help you find houses in the area, no appointment needed! 

     After I made an appointment to meet with a real estate agent, we looked at a few houses in close proximity to my place of work. Within an hour of looking, I found an apartment I liked! Although it wasn't the best apartment ever, the rent was cheap ($2300 RMB, or a little more than $350 a month), and the landlord was very accommodating. I did have quite a few roommates though who moved in and out throughout the course of my time there, but luckily most of them tended to keep to themselves, and my room had it's own bathroom and wash machine, so I didn't have to deal with their messes. 

     A major reason I was able to find a house in Shanghai so quickly for such a low price is because, although I was technically living in Shanghai, I was waaaaay out in the middle of nowhere (it took me about an hour and a half to get to the hustling bustling center of Shanghai). I am sure that, in the heart of Shanghai, finding housing might be much more frustrating. However, many internships can be very accommodating; some will provide housing for their interns!

     Although I did not plan on staying in that location for very long (only about 5 or 6 months), I still wanted to make my little apartment mine and furnish it with a few things here and there! Luckily, there was an Ikea relatively close to my house (about an hour or so) with a ton of cheap organizing tools to make my little apartment feel more homey. 

     As for moving my stuff from Nanjing to Shanghai, I played the safe route and took a few trips back and forth to transfer my stuff. Luckily, I had my friend Melissa to help me (we also toured around Shanghai and saw some very interesting sites, which I will share in a future blogpost). On the other hand, some people I know preferred to use 快递, a delivery service, to ship their stuff. I chose not to because I have heard tales of people losing their stuff in the mail!

     Thanks for reading! Please feel free to ask any questions or make comments! In my next post, I will be discussing my Taiwan Trip during the Spring Festival.