A room with a view

View from my window.

Last Friday after more than 2 months of travelling I finally arrived in Xiamen. From now on I will stay in the same place again, at least that’s what I’m planning to do. Much to my surprise I immediately found a room on the day I arrived. I expected to find a room somewhere this week with a lot of hassle and the whole search to be quite frustrating. But apart from the bargaining it turned out to be quite easy.

When I just got off the bus I found out that the youth hostel, where I planned on staying the first week was already full. So I went to the first internet bar I saw, and searched for the number of the University’s foreign student department. When I called them, I was surprised to hear that they would immediately send someone from a housing agency to the main gate of the university, to help me find a room.

I was even more surprised to find out that the student working for the agency could speak decent English. This is quite a change from Wuhu, where even the English majors don’t speak English that well. The first room she showed me was quite small and 600 Yuan more expensive than I had in mind. Apart from the size and the rent, I wasn’t very happy with the room. The second one she showed me, had the price I had in mind, but this room was even smaller, and didn’t have any windows. And because the room wasn’t that new anymore all in all it looked kind of depressing. Not a very good place to live, to say the least.

Fortunately the landlady had another room upstairs. This room was a lot bigger and had two big windows opposite each other, both with a great view. Outside the room there was a roof balcony, from where you could see the sea and on the other side the university campus. I immediately liked this room, but unfortunately the landlord wanted 500 Yuan more than I was planning on paying for accommodation. It was a very nice room but not being sure of getting a part time job here, I thought I could better go and find another room. Because I said that this was a really nice room, but just a bit too expensive for me the landlord offered the rent 200 Yuan cheaper, I still thought this was too expensive, so I left. Downstairs we were surprised by a phone call. “What about 300 Yuan Cheaper?”

So I experienced my first bargaining over a room, which went quite successful in my opinion. So far I heard that my new neighborhood close to the university is in general quite expensive, especially for foreigners. However I still think it’s a bit strange to bargain over the rent, that’s just impossible to do in Amsterdam. Though it’s a lot harder to find a room in Amsterdam as well.

View from the other window. Outside the photo on the right is the university.

On a side note, from my balcony you can even see the statue of the Chinese hero Koxinga, who is standing on another small Island (Gulangyu). They have a very big statue of him, because he defeated the Dutch colonists in Taiwan and reoccupied Chinese land. Therefore he is a Chinese/Taiwanese hero and one of the landmarks in my new city.

All in all I’m quite happy with my new room, although I’m not sure how long I will live here. Opposite one of my big windows, there is an empty piece of land, which will most likely turn into a construction site very soon. So maybe I’ll need to find another room again in a few weeks…
But until that happens I’m quite glad to have this place and I will first see how everything will go with the university. Tomorrow is already the registration date!

My new room