Today has been filled with magic. Shanghai has served up little treats for me all day, sunshine, blue sky, nice people, tasty food and, thanks to the skills of my friend Stephanie (from now on referred to as Beautiful Stephanie just like in Short Circuit!), the perfect Shanghai apartment.
We signed the contract while I was in the UK over Christmas, or rather Beautiful Stephanie signed it on my behalf, so I hadn't actually seen the place. I just saw photos and had a rave review from my friend and decided that it would be fun to move in somewhere I'd never seen. And if there were rats, I could blame her!
I was filled with butterflies as I followed her directions to our new home this evening. At least I think it was that and not my barbecued potato slices from last night. I walked into our compound and my heart sank a little. A series of very ordinary looking white tower blocks were lined up in front of me. Beautiful Stephanie and I had often talked about living in an old-style Shanghainese house and how fun it would be to live in a characterful old place. Her emails about the flat had described how it was just as we had talked about. I worried that perhaps our versions of the Shanghai dream flat were different as these white blocks just weren't doing it for me.
However, peeking through the white blocks is a shorter, squatter building with a zillion windows straight out of a 1930s Shanghai film. The kind of building where the hero's girlfriend lives. I skipped into the building and ran up the stairs. A mass of corridors led me to our front door. Actually that's a lie. Beautiful Stephanie led me to our new front door as I got lost in the mass of corridors! We are going to live somewhere lovely, somewhere that fills all my expectations of what a Shanghai old apartment should be - it even has a light that doesn't work and a washing machine you have to pull out to use. I am totally charmed. The big move happens over the weekend and that's when we'll meet the landlord, register at the police station and start making it cosy. I am in charge of the cosy part as Beautiful Stephanie is taking a well-earned break and flying off to India for a holiday. Photos will follow after the big move!
The other bonus is that it's a 5 minute walk to an incredible restaurant that Beautiful Stephanie and I both adore so we had a great dinner of dragon beans and deep fried taro balls and made a pact that we could only go there for dinner once a week or we would be too rolypoly to fit in our new bathroom.
Today I am very happy and excited about my new life here. Tomorrow I have a big meeting at work so I need to learn some useful words to add to my vocabulary and get some sleep. I am aware that Shanghai will pay me back for this perfect day with some yang to my yin. But for today, I'm just going to enjoy it.
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