Life's Journey: New Place

Last week I moved into an apartment. I've now been here for 8 days. When I walked in, I was taken away by the amount of space, location, view, balcony, and the size of the kitchen. Previously I looked at about 6 or 7 places. Most were in the Phu My Hung area which is basically a suburb for rich people/foreigners. It was not what I was looking for, and nor was the price. The location of my place is great, I'm in District 1 which is still near many restaurants, cafes, bars, and a river. I am the only foreigner in the building, all the other residents are Vietnamese. So far the neighbors have been extremely helpful and friendly, today I bought one of those large 5 gallon water dispensers for $13,000 VND, yep that's right, .62 U.S. cents for that much water. I couldn't believe it to say the least. I'm sure the guy would have charged me more, but one of the neighbors initiated this for me, she must have seen me buying gallon jugs of water. Last night the moto security guy wanted me to drink with him and his buddies, but I had work to do. My first night here, I accidently left my keys in the doorknob and a neighbor knocked on my door and handed them to me. Have to say I've been blessed thus far regarding my neighbors. The building has 9 floors, but only about 4 floors are used for housing, the rest are used for government meetings and businesses. I live on the 9th floor. When I walk into the apartment to the left is the large bathroom which includes a washing machine (wasn't expecting that, added bonus) straight ahead is the living room and entrance to the balcony. If I turn right into the living room, the kitchen is on the right which has two burners and a lot of space for cooking. My refrigerator is placed between the doors to the bathroom and bedroom. The bedroom which is on the left side after entering the living room is large and has a lot of closet space, a large dresser, air conditioning and access to the balcony as well. Now to the balcony, it is about 25-30 feet long. It has a great view of the river which has a distant bridge and highway running along it. At night the lights zig zag with the road and during sunset it is a nice relaxing view. Unfortunately the sun is blocked by a building across from this one, but I can still see the change of color in the sky. Now that I have glorified my apartment, let's get to some of the parts I wasn't aware of before signing my contract.

Last Wednesday I saw the place and decided this was it, it had everything I wanted and then some. Thursday night I moved in and signed the contract right after work. I had to pay 2 months rent for a safety deposit, and then pay 1 month of rent (1 month is equal to $350 USD). So in total 3 months worth of rent on the spot. I will get the safety deposit back as long as I stay for the full 8 months of the contract which is until June 20th. So Thursday night, I sign the contract, pay the money and later leave to grab dinner. I walk to the elevator and wait for an exhorbitant amount of time. I call my realtor and he talks with the owners. It turns out, the elevator shuts down at 7pm every day. All I can do is laugh, though I am frustrated at the same time. But what's the point of getting angry, it won't make anything better, I'll just be pissed off. So I descend 9 flights of stairs to go grab dinner. I get my food, return, and walk up the 9 floors again. It's not too tiring, but I do wonder how much it will take its toll on me in the long run. I do admit I am annoyed at the fact the owners did not mention this rather LARGE detail when signing the contract. Since I found out this information, I've done my best to plan my outings directly after work and to return by 7pm. This week I was successful with that. We will see how much more of this will bother me, but I've been thinking of it as a more positive thing. I can get exercise if I really want to, and it may serve as a deterrant for me from going out at night which means I should save more money. So it may turn out to be a better thing for my wallet at least.
This is the only downside I've encountered so far about this place, except the neighbor to my left also has access to my balcony. The owners told me only I had access to it, but sure enough, yesterday morning I saw a guy doing push-ups with the railing, and open this seemingly wooden barricade that turns out to be a door. So the owners lied to me about that, whether it's grounds to receive my safety deposit back and find a new place, I'm unsure. Right now I'm still testing the place out, I like it, I don't mind the sharing of the balcony so much since the neighbor appears to only use it around 5:30am and the elevator thing is the only major downside.

Returning to last week. As I said, I moved in on Thursday. Sophea ended up coming over the next day. Friday after work I had to rush to buy some basic necessities before she arrived. These included water, food, soap, drinks, toilet paper, a blanket, and pillows. I purchased the groceries and headed to the bus station, the worker told me the bus wouldn't arrive for another hour. I hitched a cab and the driver was extremely helpful, after some misunderstandings he helped me find a place with blankets, pillows, and pillow cases. He took me back to my place where I carried all of this up the 9 floors and dropped it off. The driver took me back to the bus station where I waited for about another 20 minutes until Sophea showed up. I assumed she would have a decent sized bag so I took a cab rather than my moto. Unfortunately I was wrong as her bag was small enough and light enough to easily carry on the moto. But we hitched a cab and made it to my place. Earlier in the week Sophea told me she injured her leg, but didn't give me any details of how bad it was or how it happened. I didn't notice anything at first and I regretfully informed her about the 9 floors we would have to climb to get to my place. I offered to carry her, but she declined. We walked up to my apartment and she didn't complain once the whole way up. We sit down and I notice a small cut on her leg, she quickly hides it from me. After some convincing, she reveals the rest of her foot, she has a large gash on her left leg. She also has large black and blue bruises on both knees. She now tells me she was driving her moto when some guy was speeding and cut her off, she slammed on her brakes, lost her balance, and fell. She informs me she didn't tell me during the week on the phone because she didn't want me to worry. Now I feel like a real jackass for having her walk up the 9 floors.

Due to her leg and the closed elevator, we order pizza delivery. First time I've ordered pizza on my own here. The driver was too lazy to come up the 9 floors so I had to go down there to pick it up, there goes his tip. Not that tipping is a common thing to do here, but if someone walks up 9 floors to bring me food, I'll be happy to give them compensation for it. We have pizza and enjoy a quiet night together at my new place. Saturday we get up early and head over to Diamond Plaza. It's a mall with 4 floors. We check out each floor and at the 4th floor we play fooseball, air hockey, a racing game, basketball, and we consider bowling, but instead grab some fruit shakes and អង្គុយលេង (angkewy leng) or sit and relax. We decide it's time to return to my place because the owner would be coming to install the internet and ensure the washing machine is working as I had trouble with it earlier. We begin watching a movie as the owner and his son show up. They get everything working and take off. We get ready for the night and grab dinner at Pacharan, a Spanish style restaurant/bar with 4 floors. We eat at the 4th floor which has a view of the downtown buildings. The view is alright, nothing spectacular, but this place was suggested by a friend. The food is decent, but nothing I found to be worth trying a second time. I take Sophea to Lily's Bar on De Tham street, where my friend Dung works. He's been wanting to meet her and I wanted him to meet her as well. We have a drink there and have a good time, then head over to 17 club as Sophea wants to see what the nightlife is like in Saigon. The 17 club is a really cool place, I went there the previous week with Dung and some friends. It's a western style saloon type of place. It has 3 floors and they provide live music on the 1st and 3rd floors. The 1st floor is primarily rock and the 3rd floor is pop, country, and hip hop, pretty well varied. We go to the 3rd floor, grab a table and some drinks. Tonight we are lucky because when the band takes a break, we catch a flamed bottle juggling show. All of the male bartenders juggle bottles they light on fire. One balances a bottle that is lit on top of his head and juggles three lit bottles. It was a really cool sight to see. The music was decent and the English of the singers was impressive. Sophea was even surprised, but she didn't want to dance due to her foot. We stay until a little past midnight and decided it's time to go back.

Sunday we leisurely decide we want to go to a museum. We spontaneously find out the Fine Arts museum is 2 blocks away from my place. We go there and look at the art. One of the artists is there and tries to tell us about his paintings but he only knows Vietnamese, French, and a little bit of English. My Vietnamese is minimal and so we are only able to get a few points across. Sophea's leg is bothering her so we don't spend much time here and we go to the Chinese market since one of my sandals broke on Friday. We each had only been there once and with some minimal directions we were able to find it fairly quickly. This time around, the people aren't very helpful. We ask for a sized 43 sandal, but nobody appears to have it and does not want to attempt to search for one. I settle for a size 42 which is a bit smaller, but it works. We then go to another mall called Lotte Mart in District 7. It's a bit of a drive for where we were at the Chinese market. While there we go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of groceries for my place and so I can cook more things and have more tea. As we are leaving Lotte Mart Sophea realizes she doesn't have her sunglasses, I head back into Lotte Mart. I ask Person A who refers me to Person B, Person B directs me to a place where I can buy sunglasses, I ask the Cart Person who directs me to a security guard, the security guard directs me to a lost and found person who was at the same place as Person A. The lady brings out Sophea's sunglasses. I'm very grateful and surprised, I imagined they would have already been stolen at that point. I go back to Sophea who is pleasantly surprised. We return home and put the groceries away. We venture over ideas for what to do with our night. We consider a boat ride, but we went to the dock area the previous night and none of the boats seemed that nice or that it would be that great of a trip. Instead we cook at home, and relax.

Monday morning I wake up, get ready for work and eat breakfast. Sophea gets up as I'm finishing breakfast. I'm surprised she's already up as I assumed she'd want to sleep as long as possible since I wouldn't be home from work till 5pm. But she gets up and I take a Xe om (moto taxi) to work so she can use my moto. This time I make sure I tell the security guys Sophea is going to be driving my moto for the day. I go to work, have a usual day at work, and get home around 5:30pm. Sophea opens the door and slowly walks back to the living room. Earlier I did my laundry on Sunday and hung it up. She has already folded and put away my laundry. That was a pleasant surprise, but unfortunately she's walking with a limp, her leg is obviously in pain. We enjoy the sunset from the balcony and take pictures together. We ponder over ideas for what to do. I look up other boat rides and find one that looks pretty nice, it's a 2 hour ride that includes dinner. I call them, but they are booked for the night and ask if I can go tomorrow, but I decline as Tuesday morning Sophea will return to Phnom Penh. We decide to stay in for the night, we look at our pictures from previous times together, watch the movie I created, and discuss what to do about her injury. We end up watching some of the movie Heat and both doze off.

Tuesday morning I drop her off at the bus station and she catches the bus. I go to work feeling elevated. I had a great weekend with Sophea and I can tell things are progressing. That night I call her and find out she had an okay bus ride, it wasn't too bad. We discuss the next time we'll see each other. I'll be going to Hanoi and Halong Bay November 4th-6th which is in two weeks. Sophea says she'll see me next year, I say, "WHAT?!" Then she explains how she doesn't know how she can explain to her mother about why she has to go to Saigon so frequently. It no longer appears to be a question of whether she wants to go :)

I know last time I said I would make a posting about moto driving, it's written already but I've yet to take the pictures, so once the pictures are taken, that posting will be published. Here are some pictures of the view from the balcony, I'll take pictures of the inside this weekend and add them.