Settling In

Originally posted 2nd February, 2015

We moved into our flat last Wednesday and since then we have been on a mission to equip it with essentials.  It is basically furnished, but had no pans, quilts, linen, and very little in the way of crockery and cutlery.  So we have been out spending money at both Carrefour and IKEA.  Whilst IKEA serves a useful purpose, the process of buying anything at the Shanghai branch is as deeply unedifying as at any other IKEA certainly in the UK, and I presume all over the world.  It's a blessed nuisance having a lymphoedemic arm as I can't carry anything heavy, so I have either had to go back a number of times during these past few days or have Richard help me, so we have been going to the shops together after he has finished work, as well.  Luckily both establishments are open until 10pm.

Our flat is on the 17th floor (of 18).  The view from our kitchen window and the balcony alongside is one that looks directly down the Gubei road:

The view from the front of the flat is less inspiring, although there are some nice palm trees in the gardens below.

As you can see there are a lot of tower blocks around us.  There are a lot of tower blocks in Shanghai, full stop.  This city is home to 24 million people.  That's just under 37% of the population of the whole of the UK.  In ONE city.  Londoners complain that their city is overcrowded.  Looking at things from out here, one thinks that the UK's capital dwellers just need to get a grip and go up.  Shanghai is however built on the soft alluvial soils of the Yangtze river delta and the city is sinking.  Shanghai is going down. It has sunk 6 feet since 1921.  And I presume with the accelerated growth, the rate of sinking is increasing.

Anyway back to moving in.  Fortunately we have a rice cooker and microwave as the sum total of our "oven" is a hob with two large gas burners ready for wok cooking and a steamer (duly bought).

We have plenty of storage - much more than we can fill with the stuff from our 7 suitcases and we have two extra rooms, as both balconies (one on each end of the flat) are enclosed and act as utility rooms with laundry maids hanging from both balcony ceilings and a washing machine and dryer on the balcony on the kitchen side.

I have not lived for anytime in another country before and it strikes me that there is an awful lot of paperwork processing going on.  We applied for visas for our stay in the UK.  But those are only temporary ones.  We needed local residency forms from staying in the Hotel and we then had to go to the local police station within 24 hours of moving in to each register for another  temporary residence registration form (TRRF), together with the lease agreement for the flat.  I've already talked about our medicals.  Work permits are being obtained for Richard by a UK firm that dealt with the process in the UK before we arrived and now doing more of the same over here. On Wednesday we have to go for a formal interview for our residence permit application and then in two or three weeks after that we should find out if we are permitted to stay for the full year. I've probably missed something out, or got something wrong in recounting all this.  You can see why.

We both carry pictures of the address of the flat on our phones and for added measure a photograph of the neon sign for "Golden Street" just across the road which all the taxi drivers have so far recognised and used to get us home.  The metro closes before 11pm, so we are bound to use them if we go out anywhere in the evenings.  A ride across town costs about £3.  Something else London could learn.