I'm one of them now!

My achievement for this week:

It was after rush hour and I was waiting for the subway train. I noticed a girl approach another local and asked for directions. I only saw her in my peripheral so I was taken aback when she approached me afterwards to ask for directions...in Mandarin. My thoughts were like D'oh, do I look Chinese? Do I look like I speak Chinese? Well, turns out I was able to understand her question. Or at least I heard the subway station she mentioned AND I WAS ABLE TO ANSWER HER! I bloody did! Well, all I said was "dui-a" (dwey-yah) which is yes in Chinese.

After living here for one year and so months, and after countless times a local approached me and asked for directions, it was this incident yesterday that made me feel so proud of myself. Haha! I was able to understand the girl's question! But I still can't accept the fact that some locals mistake me for a Chinese..just because I can make up some barok-barok Mandarin when we go shopping.

That local girl thanking me meant a lot..considering that I'm a foreigner here. I mean, it's okay if you don't get why I'm so happy about what happened..let's just say I'm just a sucker for these things and leave it at that.

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I just handed of my 3mos worth of rent to my landlord yesterday. I also asked him how much I'll be paying for July-August since it's the Olympic period and my contract w/ him stated that he will be increasing the rent during that time.

Well, I just wish he won't double my monthly rent, otherwise I might be forced to move out and look for a new apartment. Considering that it might just happen with the Olympics almost upon us, I can only imagine how stressful it's going to be. In case you didn't know, with the Olympics coming in August, greedy landlords choose to rent theirs for exorbitant prices:

For example, a usual one bedroom apartment rents for 4000 RMB (P22k) a month. Some landlords hoping to cash in on some poor stupid foreigners, makes the one bedroom apartment rent for 4000RMB (22k) per day.

I just wish my landlord won't be like that. He's cute pa naman. Otherwise, I'll be sleeping in the streets..or maybe I can just squat in our office. There's a spare meeting room inside our Vertu area..Hmmm..