Apartment Hunting.

This is a tiring city to get around, another day finished up with me knackered, but happy at what I've achieved.

By crossing the streams, I've figured out a way to get the metro ride down to 30 minutes. I reckon if I can leave a cheap bike at either end, the whole trip should be an hour each way and 2Yuan (16p). I can live with that.

So how to describe an afternoons apartment hunting.
Well, I've already spoken to Caroline, which to be fair is the important thing.
So here I'm just going to give a summary of each place and a link to the photographs I'm uploading onto Flickr.

Pop Moma
- Great name, great complex, set on an attractive man made lake full of goldfish
- 10 minute walk to Dongzhimen subway, max 20 minute walk to EC Delegation
- A little away from things so slightly isolated feeling is the downside, on the upside, nice and quiet.
- Apartment on 23rd floor with spectacular views from big windows
- Nice and obliging owners who spoke English
- Minimalist and tastefully furnished with high quality, new stuff
- Loads of storage space, loads of space in general
- Really nice main bathroom
- Not much neighbourhood feeling
- Public areas a bit lacking, lifts not great
- Couldn't open the windows, but apprently specially designed aircon lets in fresh air.
- Absolutely fantastic gym and full-size swimming pool, tons of brand new equipment, loads of space.

Concordia Plaza
- More of a neighbourhood feel, in the city itself, not isolated
- However, 15 minute taxi ride to Dongzhimen, further to EC Delegation
- Apartment with loads of character
- Beautiful big south-west facing balcony on 20th floor with good views
- However, balconies apparently not great in Beijing, always full of 'dust'.
- Loads of nice big picture windows in all rooms
- Kitchen a little dingy, but repairs promised
- Big, 2 bedrooms, plus an office, plus 2 bathrooms and the usual
- Public areas quite nice, a bit like an hotel.
- Free gym and swimming pool, but both a bit crap, seen better days

Landmark Palace
- All-round pretty crap really, just included for comparison
- Bad quality, falling to bits
- Too far away

Seasons Park
- Great location near Dongzhimen and EC Delegation and Sanlitun for bars, restaurants, shopping and other amenities
- In proper neighbourhood
- Smallish apartments furnished in Ikea style
- Fantastic communal area including a big outdoor pool with sun terrace
- Great gym and pool facilities indoors too

Chateau Edinburgh
- Good layout, made same size apartments seem bigger than Seasons Park
- Good location, near Sanlitun, 15 minutes from EC Delegation, 20 from Dongzhimen
- Good fixtures assuming furniture can be changed from renaissance excess to more of our style
- Nice central communal areas
- Very tasteful and small but well-equipped gym and pool

So there's at least 1 apartment in each of these not crap complexes for Caroline to cast her eye over when she gets here.

I'm spending the whole day looking again tommorrow with two different agents, some will be looking again at different apartments in the same complexes.

I'll link the photographs soon when they've all uploaded.
Difficult to photograph an apartment well though, my descriptions are more revealing than the photgraphs I think.