China Romance
Expats in Asia => Retirement in Asia => Topic started by: Pineau on September 19, 2011, 04:17:36 pm
-
Places to live in China.
I sometimes let my mind wander and consider what I would do if Fiona never gets a VISA or what it would be like to live here permanently.
The only one I know of that has made the move is Willy and I know about where he lives. ( about an hour south of me) But after living here in Guangzhou going on a year I can say without a doubt that this is not the place for me. There are several reasons but primarialy it just too hot and dirty and too many people in the inner city. But thats not the only consideration. Cost of living and accessibility to the creature comforts should also be considered.
So I am looking for alternatives for retirement. Im not thinking about a job. I just want a comfortable place to retire. Are there any expats on this forum that could share their experience and research ?
I have been to Beihai and I dont think it is right for me. It is also too hot and humid. In fact I have not been anywhere in China that was not hot and humid compared to the foothills of Colorado. I gave my report in another post.
I remember someone here was asking/going to Weihai and was going to report but I dont remember if he ever did. I checked on the climate on the wiki page and it gets damn cold there.
At the moment I am looking at Qingdao and it appears to be a better choice that any of the others I have considered. So who is the Qingdao expert/expat. I found a website that shows a cost of living comparison between where you live and where you are considering and it says Qingdao is 26% cheaper cost of living. http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/guangzhou/qingdao (http://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/guangzhou/qingdao)
If you reply, please place the city name on the first line by itself. It makes searching easier. For example.
Qingdao
bla...bla...bla
Beijing
bla...bla...bla
-
I'm in agreement with Mike on Qingdao.
However, I must also lean towards Zhucheng, beautiful place, very clean, lots to do ;D
-
Next stop Qingdao.
I can't find any historical weather for Zhucheng but it should not be too different from Qingdao. I just missed the beer fest so there wont be so many tourists milling around. Maybe I can see them both. Zhucheng is only 2 hours away. Its just 78 degrees there at the moment.
Ha, Fiona does not like the idea. She says Qingdao is full of pretty girls. Well that settles it. I need to go look!
-
Kaiping
1.5 hours south of Guangzhou but there's nothing to do there, tourist-wise. But housing is 25%-40% cheaper than the big cities. Population is only 800,000.
The big question is where your wife wants to go. She needs to be close to her family. Perhaps 1.5 hours north, east, west or south of Guangzhou ???
-
I prefer where i am. A short ferry ride to Hong Kong or a bus ride to the Macoa border and great night life.
Cheaper to live than GZ and more important closer to Hong Kong airport or their hospitals in an emergency.
I would not live anywhere else. Obviously very warm in summer but temp starting to drop now. Run a/c during day when I am at home
Willy
-
Beihai
« Reply #7 on: August 30, 2011, 06:44:40 PM »
Copied this here from a post I made in a different thread.
I just spent a week in Beihai and I am not overly excited about the place. I arrived by train from Nanning and left by plane to Guangzhou. There is only one flight a day to and from Guangzhou and Beihai. It was better for me to fly to Nanning then take the train rather that fly to Beihai and arrive at 2 am. Other cities may have more selections of flights.
IT WAS HOT. 85 degrees and 70% humidity. I went through three shirts a day. And can you imagine what several hundred tons of dead fish remnants smells like on a day like that? Not good at all but it was confined to certain areas.
Beihai is a very old city that was built around fishing and pearl industry. It is at the very tip of a peninsula that juts out into the South China Sea. All along the coast you will see either fishing boats or oyster harvesters. It is a small city and reminds me of some of the backwood towns in Oklahoma where I grew up. 1950s era.
It is not nearly as crowded as Guangzhou and you can see the sky....and it's blue! There are very few high-rise buildings, but I think that is about to change.
I found MacDonald's and KFC about a mile from my hotel. That area seems to be a commercial center. Lots of clothing, and of course pearl markets there. (There are jewelry markets everywhere). I found a computer store and an electronics outlet but nothing on the scale as the ones in Guangzhou. I think The shopping and selections are probably better in Gulian or Nanning.
I stayed in the oldest part of town. Right down by the water. The roads are terrible. bumps and chug holes everywhere. My hotel was located on an island know as seafood Island. It is covered with seafood restaurants. Everything I ate was good. Cant beat fresh seafood. I found a real Australian dude that had his own restruant selling western food. Right in the middle of the seafood village. They make a mean hamburger. I guess his name is Tommy cause that was the name of his restruant.
Transportation is by taxi or ricksha. Or if you dare, the back of a motoscooter. There are litterally thousands of motor scooters. Everywhere you look there are hundreds parked and hundreds more on the road. And they don't obey traffic signals. I swear they just blast through an intersection like they own it and surprisingly i didn't see anyone get killed while I was there. OK like everywhere else in China everyone is in everyone elses pocket. helping each other for kickbacks. So the taxi driver will argue with you on where you want to go even if you tell him up front where you are going. The taxi drivers and the ricksha drivers all will nag you to death to take you to this or that sightseeing tour or the best seafood restruant in town ...etc. There is now way around it that I found.
...
Along the outskirts to the north along the coast starting from the shangra-la hotel there is a lot of new construction.
Lot of hotels and condos going up.
One taxi driver told us that the cost of one of the apartments in one of the new buildings was 10,000RMB/sq meter which is pretty amazing. (and it could be Fioan's translation she gets decimal points misplaced often)
The streets are new and wide and in good condition.
All that is along the coast. On the west side of the highway it is still old and run down.
When things begin to look fresh and new you are in another city (Jinghaizhen).
Just before you get to Jinghaizhen you head due west to get to the airport.
The road to the airport looks like vast amounts of vacant land/jungle with an occasional road heading off into nowhere but in fact it is farms and industrial parks. The same is true for the coast road on the other side of the peninsula. There are a lot of new buildings that look like potential factories and warehouses. Talking with one of the locals I found out that the Beihai government is inticing new businesses to open factories there by assisting them in acquiring the land and permits and also allowing them to do business tax free for three years. Increased number of jobs raises the demand for new housing so prices are going to rise. How much is not certain.
The silver beach is over hyped. I expected to see something in the order of Disney water parks along the coast but what I found was a few hum drum beaches scattered along the coast with a hotel every few miles.
I dont know if I will go back or not. Maybe in a few years if I am in the neighborhood just to see how it has developed.
If you are familiar with google maps you can just copy and past these coordinates into the address field and the map will take you to it.
Seafood Island. 21.486496,109.103315
My Hotel. 21.486586,109.105428
Seafood restruants. and Tommies western restruant. 21.486332,109.101866
Old Town. A great look at the old town Beihai and the buildings. 21.484125, 109.104610
KFC is on your left . 21.475804,109.108733
McDonalds. 21.476233,109.109967 Also Just to the left of the door is some local food vendors.....do you feel lucky?
-
Places to live in China. Retire here?
Qingdao, Beijing, Zhucheng, Willy's “Zhongshan”?
I find this subject intriguing, but the thread sort of died on the vine.
I assume most members have had thoughts of retirement sometime or other, in a country of “friendly refuge”, or maybe China. Zhongshan seems to have worked very well for Willy.
Quingdao reads interesting, worthy of a visit.
I enjoyed Xian a few years ago. Possibilities of work exist there.
A couple places of my retirement interest are Yangshuo & Kunming. I think my dear wife may prefer Dalian, to the south of Shenyang/ Fushun, where her family resides.
Just entertaining the thought of life in China. Every place has it pluses & minuses. The strong possibility exists of retiring there, or spending a good part of the year somewhere there.
Maybe the bros have pleasant thoughts on their favorite China city. I, for one, am interested in their take on it.
-
Check out New Zealand..
Lots of Chinese emmigrate here.. or want to..
In fact at the local College, over half the pupils were not born in NZ..
( And the applications from US citizens went up tenfold after GWBush was
elected for a second term ).
My wife is from Harbin, Heilongjiang, and started to pine for 'home and hearth'
So I sent her back there last year;
within a week she was wanting me to book the airfare back here..
The reality of Harbin was too 'unclean' and too 'Russian'..
Now she has NZ residency, I've joined her up to Kiwisaver, and the Govt
has contributed $1000 to kickstart her retirement account; she also now gets
subsidised medical care and gets unlimited books ( in Putong Hua) from the
local library for free :-) .
Here she can retire at 65 on $300/week in the hand; in China Zip
She is amazed that NZ is more of a 'we are all in this together'
kind of a country than the so called Communist China :-)
-
Oh, and a PS..
Next week I'm due to be a father again...
No.. not what you might think.. it only fires blanks :-)
Next week Yan's son arrives here.. we snuck him in on the same residency
application as my wifes. He's completed training as a radiology paramedic..
and in all the farewell partying before he departs, all, but all his classmates
were asking him how to get live in NZ.
Not that there arn't some lovely spots in CHina, but there are a lot of
astute people in China who have an idea of what the future holds for
them and want to bail out before then.
There are some advantages to being a small island well away from it all :-0
-
I always liked Zhuhai.It is close to Hong Kong and Macau.The weather is nice year around.It is a little hot in July and August.It sits right on the Pearl river delta.So you can go fishing.Or take a walk down lovers rd.Or rent a bike and ride around the island that sets in the middle of the bay in Zhuhai.
There are supermarkets there that stock western foods.And there is a western restaurant.Called the Blue Angel cafe.That has the best steak in China.And some of the coldest beer.That I have ever drank.
-
David K,
thanks much! had the opportunity to visit NZ 18 years ago or so. spent a month. sort of liked the area about Taupo the best. maybe the volcano to the South be a problem.
really enjoyed the seafood up & down the coasts.
I always thought it a difficult issue for a foreigner to reside in NZ. as I recall, 4 months was the "longest" stay possible back then.
I think I will venture the Oriental road. I have a good translator now.
cheers
-
I'm with Maxx. I really loved my time in Zhongshan. Zhuhai is very close. The climate is amazing, the scenery is beautiful and it's close to Hong Kong.
-
Only one draw back with Zhuhai. I am just a short bus or train ride away from it in Zhongshan. ::) ::)
Maybe even closer when/if I get my Chinese Drivers licence in a month or so.
I have just completed 3 years here and coming up to celebrate the fourth birthday here. Do I have any regrets? Yes two. First is that I did not come here years ago and second and my biggest is that at my age I have not learned as much of the language as I should have.
Willy
-
"Zhuhai” & “Zhongshan”
Maxx, Neil, & Willy,
Just checked Wikipedia. “Zhuhai” I give a WOW. “Zhongshan” is very close. I think it may be a toss up. I just viewed TripAdvisor for both.
Everything comes into play. I venture a guess that Zhuhai may be more expensive because of the location & tourism.
Jing & I will just have to visit & see what we like.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g297418-Zhuhai_Guangdong-Vacations.html#1819924 (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g297418-Zhuhai_Guangdong-Vacations.html#1819924)
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g297417-Zhongshan_Guangdong-Vacations.html (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g297417-Zhongshan_Guangdong-Vacations.html)
much thanks!
-
John, Zhuhai was more expensive when I lived there. My 2 bed apartment cost 2500 rmb a month when I came to Zhongshan I got a comparable one for 1200 a month.
Where you live depends on whether you plan to work or work part time and be a tourist.
You have received a lot of advice from people on various places they have visited. Thats fine for VISITS but you are planning to live here then you have to take in other considerations.
Some of these places are harder to get to than others. But the main consideration I came to this part of China was the ease of travel. Being just a ferry ride from Hong Kong was the clincher. As Gerry found being in Hospital in China is not the best things in the world. Whereas Hong Kong has comparable system to UK, well we did put it into place. That takes the worry out of the possiblilty of falling ill with anything other than normal ailment.
Many of the big cities, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and of course Beijing and Shanghai are must more expensive to live in with minimum wages and much higher costs of renting or buying a home.
Here the air is clear.
But for me the main consideration was health as I get older and being close to Hong Kong wins it for me with hundreds of flights every day to modern efficient hospitals.
What put me off was when my 85 year old Father in Law broke his arm he left the hospital with four pieces of bamboo wrapped around his arm with a bandage!!
Willy
-
Willy, How long does it take to ride the ferry to Zhongshan and how much does it cost?
I'm thinking on my next trip I'll take the ferry to Guangzhou from the airport. I;m sure the cost and time will be close to the same.
-
Willy, How long does it take to ride the ferry to Zhongshan and how much does it cost?
I'm thinking on my next trip I'll take the ferry to Guangzhou from the airport. I;m sure the cost and time will be close to the same.
So Shaun
I seem to have missed this one earlier this month.
There are no Ferries to Guangzhou from Hong Kong Airport. Not even from anywhere in Hong Kong.
The Ferry from HK Airport to Zhongshan costs 260 rmb and there are are three a day. The bus from Zhongshan to Guangzhou costs 48rmb.
There are so many planes arriving at Hong Kong that it is often cheaper to take that route and then take the Ferry to here and then the Bus. If you need a bed for the night we have one here for you.
Willy
-
Thanks Willy.
-
Really, Really Cheap housing in China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3XfpYxHKCo
-
In Weihai where we have a place on the 26th floor over looking the sea...only 6 of the 12 projected high rises have been built. Very few people live there, and my wife Hong is uncomfortable with the lack of people for security reasons.
-
I recall 12 years ago in Shenzhen it was much like this. There was construction everywhere, cranes on top of buildings, more bright shiny buildings than you could count. The trouble was that the were all empty! Security guards at the doors of empty lobby's. That went on for years but now look at Shenzhen. Those building are full and they are tearing down old neighborhoods to make room for more high-rise housing. Its just taken 12 years time and that is one of China's biggest resources... time.
-
When I came to Zhongshan over 5 years ago the place we bought was on the edge of the city and over that time the city has spread long beyond us. Everywhere I look there are tower cranes and new complexes.
We have bought our second home a little bit further toward the edge of town and there are 20 more floors above the one we bought and all have been sold even though they look empty. This is probably because it takes a long while after the outside is completed as it takes many months for the inside to be ready for occupation. Before we found the one we bought we looked at many more complexes but most already sold out.
Everywhere I look there are more cranes appearing and more complexes under way and what was a city of 2.5 million people five years ago is getting bigger every day.
Situated between the more expensive cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai our lower home prices are attracting the newcomers.
Willy