Learn Yu Wen Learn Chinese language and culture.

After all of that traveling, I needed to settle down a bit. It was time to get an apartment. A local girl from Suzhou named Azalea who had majored in English in college assisted Jake and me in our apartment search.  Although we were barely acquainted, Azalea spent three full days trekking around Suzhou with us in order to help us find an apartment.

I have mentioned that there is a lack of abidance to rules in China, but don’t get that confused with a lack of courtesy. Once you have met someone here in China, they will go way out of their way to assist you in any means possible.

Azalea helped us find a fully furnished two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with a study and large living room on the border of the SND (Suzhou New District) for RMB 2800/month (aprox. $350). It easily trumped my previous place, which was an unfurnished basement apartment in Boston that cost $1200/month. Over a month’s time, I had gone from a financially strapped college kid to a member of the upper-middle class. China was treating me well.