Apartment Hunting

Yup! We're looking for a new place to live AGAIN.

This is what we're looking for:
1. it must have a balcony (def: a balcony is a place where we can at least put a chair/table out),
2. there must be at least 2 rooms,
3. it's no higher than the 4th floor if no elevator,
4. it has to be on the red/green MRT line because our jobs are both on that line,
5. it has to have the view of either the mountains or the water, and
6. it has to have a decent-sized kitchen.

At first, it seemed almost impossible to find a place that fits all these criteria, but it was actually easier than I'd anticipated. We searched on the Internet for apartments in suburbs on the north and south ends of the city, and in a couple of hours we were able to put together a list of 6 places. One in the north in Hongshulin, one station before Danshui, and all the other ones were in the south in Xindian.

We timed the commute as well. To get to where we work (in Gongguang and Guting), it takes around 40 minutes from the north and 30 minutes from the south on the MRT. It's really not that bad. When I worked in Vancouver, I had to spend half an hour on the bus. Bill used to drive 40 minutes to work in Seattle. If we live outside of the city, we can always read, listen to music, or play Nintendo during the commute.

The apartment in Hongshulin was absolutely AMAZING. It's brand new. It's fully furnished. It has a standing shower and a big bathtub. In the study, there's a big window looking out to the mountains. It's got marble tiles and wood plank floors. It's on the 14th floor, so it's very quiet. It's walking distance from the MRT station. The landlady speaks fluent English and her husband is an actuary from California. In other words, she's not like the typical Taiwanese landlords who often doesn't care about anything else but money.

Bill and I thought about it all day long but we had to make the painful decision because the place is just too small for us.

A couple of the apartments we went to look at in Xindian were also very nice. One of them has a huge window in the kitchen looking out to Bitan (The Green Lake), but the bedroom is a dark Tatami (Japanese straw mat) room the landlord has sectioned off in the corner of the living room.

Bitan suspension bridge

We spent 6 hours going from apartment to apartment yesterday and went home exhausted and defeated. One good thing from all this is that we know there are places out there that have the potential to fit in with what we're looking for.

The search continues...