I’m in New York. Whoa. Dude. It’s actually been pretty hectic. I’ve spent several hours the last couple days looking at apartments with an apartment broker from Citi Habitats. I actually applied for a nice 1BR on the edge of Chelsea yesterday, even though it was a bit out of my price range. Unfortunately, the landlord got other applications and is now dithering as to who to accept, so we looked at a bunch more places today. Depending on what happens with the first place, I may apply for a studio I looked at today up near Carnegie Hall. We’ll see.

I am a bit shocked by how small New York apartments are. And how expensive. It’s especially a culture shock coming from a soft rental market like the Bay Area, where I just rented out my gorgeous 2BR/2BA place, 1200 square feet with a view, decked out with black slate tile floors for $1500/month. On Manhattan, $1500/month doesn’t even get me a 200 square foot studio with no windows. At least in the hip neighborhoods of Chelsea and Greenwich Village where I started out looking. I expanded my search today.

I’m still pretty freaked out. I’m hoping that will die down once I actually have a place and start work and have some structure in my life again.

P.S. Amusing note of the day – my hotel is near Koreatown, so I went to a Korean restaurant for dinner this evening. There was a woman playing the kaya-gum, which is kind of like a zither or harp. It provided a nice atmosphere. At some point during the evening, though, my brain noticed something was wrong. It took me a couple moments of listening to realize that the kaya-gum player was now covering the song Yesterday, by the Beatles. That sounded really weird because I knew the song, but the instrument is wired in my brain as playing distinctively Asian pentatonal melodies. She later threw in Imagine, as well.