Chengdu apartments / net access

[Guest Dai Weiren]

I'm thinking of spending some time in Chengdu, maybe taking some Chinese classes on the side, but mainly just hanging around and relaxing for a few months.

Does anyone have any tips about how I could go about apartment hunting in Chengdu?

Also, does anyone have any information about what it takes to get Internet access (dial-up or broadband) in my apartment? I do a lot of work on the Internet, and this is a pretty important factor for me.

Thanks,

戴维仁

[sjb6h]

I rented an apartment in Chengdu earlier this year and investigated several ways of getting broadband Internet.

Since there seems to be no English language expat websites for Chengdu (I mean sites like www.thatssh.com or www.8Days.sh) with any kind of listings for apartments for rent (please correct me if Im wrong on this) I had to do things the old fashioned way...

I went around to real estate brokers near where I wanted to live. I ended up looking at several nice places and found the prices to be roughly half of the level for a similar place in Shanghai, so 2000kuai/month will get you something pretty big and modern.

Chengdu has both kuandai and ADSL, similar to Shanghai and additionally, the complex I was living in had some kind of private LAN connection. The prices are pretty much the same as for Shanghai, something like 120 kuai per month, plus a setup fee.

I realize this post is a bit late, but Im really trying to figure out why no one seems to have set up a decent English website for Chengdu yet. If anyone has any ideas on this, or is interested in setting one up, Im interested in hearing about it and helping out.

[roddy]

I seem to remember from last time I was in Chengdu (admittedly some time ago) there was an ex-pat magazine called Look West, or Go West, or something similar. Do they have a website, or perhaps you could contact them about setting one up?

To be honest, a basic website with news, classifieds, forum, etc, is very easy to set up and can be done entirely with open source software. Hosting costs are very cheap also.

The problem is making people aware of it - which is why working with, for example, an established magazine would be a wise move.

Roddy

[sjb6h]

Right on Roddy,

The magazine is called Go West or 溜溜西都 and it usually comes out every two or three months, but sometimes not. Its in English, but produced by a local staff, so most of the articles are translated from Chinese. They cover travel and culture in western China, but not quite at the same level of English as many of the expat mags in costal cities.

Its definitely the best guide for Chengdu that Ive seen, has lots of food and hotel listings and a decent map-- altogether more info than Let's Go or Lonely Planet. Seems like a website would be a natural extension...

I asked them about their site earlier this year and supposedly they're planning one.