Sun 12 Oct: apartment hunting eastside

Hunting with professional help
As part of the relocation package a local relocation specialist came to pick me up in the morning. Liz the agent picked me up and we headed east to look at more apartments.

Mercer Island
A self contained island with all the amenities you'd need, including groceries, schools, doctors, vets. Situated right between Seattle and Bellevue makes it very convenient to go either way. If you pick the right apartment you might even get a scenic sea view!

It's an affluent area, counting Paul Allen as one of its residents.

Bellevue
Bellevue's new residents serve a wide variety of employers including Amazon, Microsoft, T-Mobile, and Boeing. Its location is pretty good, and it shows by having more malls and good restaurants.

Personally I don't like it very much. It's built up, but feels kinda messy. No charm about it.

Kirkland
I love Kirkland's downtown area. It's got a nice charm about it. Otherwise Kirkland is a rather quiet place with its housing nestled between the woods. Still, it has identity.

Issaquah
Issaquah is furthest away from Seattle among the places I visited. Fortunately it is on the H90 which leads directly to Seattle.

Issaquah is an up-and-coming town. Most of the developments are no more than 4 years old. Yet already there are many companies who have set up shop together in the cluster which I think will eventually become Issaquah's downtown.

Love the mountain view. Love the air.

Sat 11 Oct: dim sum, drive to the north

Dim Sum at Chinatown
Met Michael for Dim Sum over brunch. We went to Jade Garden at Chinatown. Initially I had reservations about parking there - safety and price. Turns out Jade Gardens is a short walk from a very quaint commercial parking compound located under the flyover.

The parking compound is essentially this huge area of parking lots. At the center of the lots is this letterbox-like thing:

To make payments, slot your money into the slit that's associated with your lot number. Notice Michael using a Metal Thing to push the money deep inside so no-one steals your money. The Metal Thing itself is tied to a string.

Every x minutes or so an attendant will come and tally up parking vs payments. If you do your math you'd realise that you a little more time than you paid for, depending when the attendant comes.

Dim Sum is probably the local's best association with Chinese food. If you ask them if they had Chinese food, they'd be thinking Dim Sum. That and Ding Tai Feng if they ate there before. Ding Tai Feng is located in Bellevue, and short drive out of Seattle. I had eaten most of the food before I remembered to take pictures. This is Michael's special order of Chee Cheong Fun wrapper over fried fitters.


Apartment hunting
After brunch we set out to view some of the apartments up north. For those coming to Seattle for the first time - especially those who have never stepped foot in the US before - it's highly advisable to view the apartments in person. Most apartments will have a web site. But the pictures are usually inadequate, and does not give you an accurate picture of the actual situation. For example, you need to:

1. Check out the interior of the units. How old the appliances are, how clean, wardrobe space, storage space, heating etc.
2. Safety of the neighbourhood. Some apartments are right beside complexes designated for lower income people.
3. Neighbouring amenities. Look out for shops that can make your living a little easier

We went as far as Shoreline, which on the map feels far. Having reached there, I was excited about the possibility of living beside an (albeit small) lake. Right beside it! It's easy to please the typical Singaporean with such simple pleasures.