Today was the day my wife and I engaged in the annual pleasure fest that is apartment hunting.

We do this just about every year for some reason, and next week we will be moving into our eighth (or ninth?) Beijing apartment. It only took a few days to find the right place this time, which could have been worse.

Unfortunately, I had the wacky impression that when we went over to the apartment around noon, we would check out the place briefly and maybe later sign a contract = total time commitment about two hours.

Well, it turned into nine, and I should have known better. Part I was the rigorous screening process, whereby my wife and I chatted with the landlord about various and sundry items while we looked the place over. It took several hours, and we’re talking about a two bedroom apartment.

After deciding we wanted the place, we made an appointment with the landlord for 4:30 to sign the lease. We then went to the ATM, where we took out about 12 kilos in cash, which went into a paper bag to be turned over to the landlord. Yes, this is normal for a China apartment lease, although you do feel incredibly weird and paranoid walking around with that amount of cash.

The appointment was for 4:30. It lasted until 9:30. The contract was four pages in length.

Explanation? Hard to say unless you’ve been through one of these things, but suffice it to say that we ended up with a foot-high stack of documentation (including the landlord’s stuff as well as docs brought by my wife and I) that was pored through meticulously. The contract discussions were slow and painful, detail oriented and methodical.

All in all, it was . . . pretty normal. I look forward to next year.

Needless to say, I’m exhausted. No blogging tonight. Maybe I’ll recover sufficiently to bang something out tomorrow.