Oh god, why apartment hunting is so hard??

In the end of last September, I moved back to Chicago and has been staying at my husband's parents' house  since then. We started apartment hunting in Chicago in the middle of November after my husband got a job contract and found my dream apartment in Logan Square area. The place had everything we wanted, such as amazing kitchen featuring beautiful white cabinet, brand new appliances and in-unit washer/dryer, spacious bathroom, prime Logan Square location, quiet and beautiful neighborhood(bedrooms were little bit small, but it wasn't a big problem for us) We put an application for the apartment without hesitation and was told the apartment would be ours if the result of credit check was okay. Since my husband's score is perfect, we didn't see any problem.

However, the owner of the apartment started acting really weird on the phone and at first he said he had no idea how my husband's job works(he is a contract nurse btw) My husband explained to him about the job and even offered to tell him a phone number of the nurse in charge. He said "okay, I'll call her tomorrow" and hanged up on us. Next day, he called us and asked if he was able to check my husband's bank statement. We were like "WTF?!" and asked him if he had checked my husband's credit score already. Then he suddenly started dancing around the question so my husband asked him "Answer yes or no, did you ever check my credit?" And he finally admitted he hadn't done it yet and explained there was another party who showed an interest in the apartment and they agreed to show him their bank statements, so if we couldn't show ours, our dream apartment would theirs. I have no idea why he had no idea how to do credit check(I'm a foreigner in this country, but even I can figure out how to do it) My husband was so confused and answered "I'm not comfortable about showing my bank statement to a stranger. Why don't you do credit check? It's more simple and sounds legitimate" Since then we started feeling suspicious about him and wondered if he was a legitimate landlord because he looked way younger to be a landlord. We explained our situation to my husband's family and everyone advised him to trust his instinct. So we decided to not to take the apartment.

After Christmas, we found a great 2 bedroom apartment in northwest Logan Square area and decided to check the place. My husband sent a landlord email first, but received no reply. But it was totally understandable because it was still on holiday season. And few days later, he finally got a reply from her. According to her email, she stayed at her family's house longer than she expected so she was not able to give us quick reply but able to show the place soon. At that time, we didn't think something wrong with her and made an appointment of seeing. The apartment was at little bit gritty area and walk about 15 minutes from nearest train station and the carpet looked nasty, but she promised us to get rid of the carpet and we overall liked the spacious layout and the great amenities. Our first impression of the landlord lady was little bit young, but polite and nice. So we didn't expect she would bring us a lot of troubles. After researching about the neighborhood, we concluded that the area should be fine if we'll be careful at nights and decided to choose the place. However, it was a beginning of our nightmare.

After faxing an application form to her, she got M.I.A for a few days. My husband sent her email asking if everything was okay and  she finally wrote us back and excused it would take longer to receive a result of credit check. She told us the store was great so we could move anytime. We're excited about our new apartment and we agreed to move in 2 days later. We started packing really fast and even loaded our bed to his dad's van. We were totally ready to move out his parents' house. However it turned to nightmare. He called her what time she would be home couple of times, but she never picked up the phone. So our moving was cancelled and ended up sleeping on our bedroom floor. At that night, she sent him a polite apologize text and excused SHE TOTALLY FORGOT OUT MOVING IN DATE! Seriously?? It was totally unprofessional and unacceptable. Then, she explained she hadn't got the carpet removed yet and would take few more days. He asked her when the next move in day would be, but she didn't reply him. Few days later, he send her another email asking her what was going on. She wrote him well written apologize email and said that she found nasty stains under the carpet, so it would take extra days to finish everything and went M.I.A. AGAIN. We were tired of sleeping without mattress, we were tired of living with limited items since we packed up everything, we were tired of waiting replies from her. I mean, we were SO frustrated. Another few days passed and received no messages from her. We finally decided to wait few more days and if she couldn't finish everything or write us back in few days, then we should have started finding another place. As we expected, she was still M.I.A and we received no replies. That's it, he told her that we wouldn't take her apartment. Then I joked him "I can swear, she will take at least 4 days to write us angry email" And as I expected, she sent us well written angry email a week later. lol Basically, it was full of excuses, but didn't explain why everytime she went M.I.A. for few days after sending us polite apologize/excuse emails.

That's it, it's over. We started checking Craigslist frequently again and the result is not good because nobody wanna move out in the middle of January. But sincerely hope third time will be the charm.

My Whooga boots review

About a month ago, I received my first UGG type boots from Whooga and think it's time to write a review about them.

For the people who have never heard about the brand, Whooga is a fast growing UGG  boots company from Australia. As you know, UGG is the most famous sheepskin boots brand on the earth, but nowadays their brand name is used to call all of the types of sheepskin boots. I heard that actually Whooga's boots are better quality than UGG's and decided to make a order in the end of Nov.

Shipping;
As boots from UGG Australia are made in China, Whooga's boots has a factory in China and all of the items are shipped directly from there. My boots were shipped only 2 days after I ordered and took about a week to arrive to Chicago. The shipping costed $14 and the carrier was DHL.

The product;
I ordered Black Classic Tall Boots because black is my main color and I needed warm & tall boots that protect my feet from the cold. When I received my order, I felt the box was smaller than I expected and thought if they sent me short ones by mistake. I opened the box and was glad to know that I've received correct ones. However, the top parts of the boots were folded to fit in the small box(of course I no longer see the sign of creases...) Probably they totally ran out of the biggest boxes for the tall boots and used the ones for the mini or short ones. The brown box was absolutely cute(also ribboned!) but little bit damaged :(see the picture below)

:(

Sizing;

Before ordering, I was in between sizes dilemma and not sure if I should have ordered size 7 or 8 because the website advises the customers to size up if they're in between sizes(my shoe size is 24.5 cm, UK 6 or US 8) However some of the reviewers said that their boots run a bit large. Well, I ended up ordering the size 8 because my Sorel snow boots I bought last year was slightly smaller than I expected and regretted not buying a half size bigger one. As a result, my boots were SLIGHTLY large(like less than a half size), but I had enough room to wear thick socks so I decided to keep mine. It passed about 2 weeks since I received my boots and now feel that I chose right ones :) If I had ordered the size 7, it would had been little bit tight for me. If you measured your feet before ordering and your boots didn't fit right? Don't worry, Whooga has generous free exchange policy.

Quality;

The inside is filled with super fluffy fleece and so comfy! 

See?

They keep my feet warm and toasty even in the extremely cold days(But I don't recommend you to wear them in the snowy day because technically UGGs are NOT snow boots. If you're looking for snow boots, I recommend Sorel or Columbia) I've never owned Uggs, but when I saw them at local mall, I tried them and realized that Whooga is more plushy and comfy. Usually real Uggs cost at least $180, but Whooga's classic tall boots cost only $120~140(+ shipping) Definitely they are reasonable for the quality and I highly recommend their products!

If you are from the US, you can order from HERE
If you're from UK, you can order from HERE

Happy new Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all will have amazing year!

My new year's resolutions

Get a driver's license
Get a next job
Get an apartment as soon as possible
Have more time to spend with my husband, friends and my cat
Go out more and get more friends
Take some lessons like cooking, karate, baking etc
Start saving
Lose 3 more pounds at least

PS
I was so loled at these kittys' new year's solution
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2012/01/04/funny-pictures-new-years-resolution-cats/

5 awesome Christmas gifts for your cats

Christmas tree scratch post from Petco

Cat tee pee

Cat DJ scratch post

Cat tank

Strawberry short cake cat house

Have a nice Christmas, everyone!

I'm back! from Japan and a rabbit hole

Just back from Japan.

I hadn't been back to Japan since last summer, so I was great to be back there again. In this time I stayed at my parents' house in Yokohama about 3 weeks. Sadly, my flight was cancelled by stupid Travelocity once and had to reschedule my flight again. So 2 or 3 days before the flight, I tried my best to send messages to my Japanese friends. I was able to see some of them, but most of them were not able to change their busy work schedule and couldn't hang out together. Bummer.

Unfortunately, this blog post doesn't come with colorful pictures in Japan because I forgot to charge my digital camera and didn't bring the charger to Japan. Well, I took some pictures by using my mom's old cell phone, but I had no idea how to send those pictures to my email address(urrrgh I don't like cell phones for old people)

Anyway, here are what I did

Watching "Monk" DVDs with my parents at home
Eating yummy Japanese snacks
Reading my old Japanese books
Hanging out with my old friends almost everyday
Going to Roppongi, Yokohama, Minatomirai, Harajuku, Shibuya, Shinjuku etc
Spending $$$ at 100 yen stores(one dollar store in the US)

BTW have you ever seen this picture of Katy Perry?

This picture was taken at Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant called "Mahono Kunino Alice"(it means "Alice in Magical Land" in English) in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Since I found it on her Twitter, I really wanted to go there and finally I did! Actually, the place is run by the company also runs 2 other Alice in Wonderland themed restaurants in Tokyo and I had been both of them when I lived in Japan. I was planning to go there during dinner time, but I had an appointment to see my friend in Shibuya, so I stopped by during lunch hour. Honestly, there was no whimsy & magical atmosphere I got at 2 other Alice themed places and I felt the place was little bit cheap(pink decor, donut shaped cushions, crappy drink bar... can you understand what I'm talking about? They're more like "Alice in Sweetland") I assume it's because I went there during lunch hour. If you're interested, I definitely recommend you to visit at night. Probably they gonna lower the lights and you won't find their cheesy parts...) BTW the lunch menu food is reasonably priced(about 12 USD for lunch set with drink bar. FYI their gorgeous dinner set costs at least 37 USD...) and my shrimp tomato pasta was good.

If you wanna enjoy little bit more gorgeous Alice in Wonderland world, I recommend "Ehonno Kunino Alice" in Shinjuku. As the name tells("Ehon" means a picture book in English), the entrance doors shape like a huge book and their decor is more authentic than "Mahono Kunino Alice"

F**k you, Travelocity!

I know controlling you anger is important, but I can't stand for Travelocity!

Well, here is what happened to me today... I decided to stay at  my parents' house in Japan for 3 weeks and booked a flight at Travelocity because they were offering the cheapest straight flight tickets. My husband had purchased tickets from them and we had no issues with them. But this time was different.

About 5 hours later, I received a email from Travelocity saying my reservation was cancelled because I didn't reply to their phone call or email immediately. I was so shocked and checked my phone and email inbox, but I didn't receive any phone call or email at all and had no idea why they did that without my permission. The email also says "if you call us, we're happy to explain the reason of the cancellation" so I did. I was not sure how long I waited, but at least 10 minutes later finally an operator named Michel picked up the phone. Her tone was obviously RUDE, but I tried to be nice and explained what happened to me. She asked my ID number. I couldn't find it immediately and told only I knew was reservation number. Then she suddenly hanged up the phone on me! WTF? I couldn't believe that she even didn't give me 10 seconds to find my ID number. I was so pissed, but to know the reason of the cancellation, I found another customer service number and called them again.

The next operator was Indian guy, but he was nicer than Michel and explained what happened, my family name on my Japanese passport(using my maiden name) and my family name on my debit card(using my husband's family name) were different, so they thought someone stole my card to bought the ticket. I asked him if they ever called or  sent me a message me about my 2 different family names. He said "I have no idea, but it would have happened due to the miscommunication(I doubt they had ever tried to communicate with me) I sincerely apologize. You might be able to get the ticket back, so I'll put you through to another service representative"

Unfortunately, Michel picked up the phone again(hello, another representative, anyone?) I asked her for help, but she kept saying she couldn't help me because the ticket was already cancelled so I had to go online and make another reservation after getting refund. I asked her politely if I could talk with manager, but her answer was "I'm sorry, here is no manager today" Then I understood kept talking with her was waste of time and energy and said hanged up on her after saying thank you for your help.

Afterwards, I sent them a complaint message and received automatic reply promising up to 72 hours reply from customer service immediately. However, I haven't heard from them yet even though they keep sending me promotion emails. After I received refund, I called Japanese tour agency in the neighborhood. The agent was so polite and respectful to me and arranged my flight in less than 10 minutes. Comparing with this Japanese agency, Travelocity is a joke. If you google "travelocity complaints", you'll see TONS of similar complaints from angry ex-customers. I can't believe they're the 6th biggest travel agency in the US.

I'll never ever use Travelocity again.

Hi from Chicago :)

Few days ago, I flew to Chicago from Honolulu with 2 pieces of heavy luggage and my scaredy cat and after 14 hours flight, finally arrived to O'Hare airport. 14 hours... it's a miracle that my cat didn't pee or poop during the flight.

Honestly, this cross continent moving was the one of the greatest things I've ever done. Before moving, my husband left for mainland earlier to receive his car in Seattle. So I did a lot of things I needed to do for moving out by myself, like cleaning apartment complex completely(the former tenant obviously didn't clean her mess before moving out at all, but the landlord wanted me to do it. WTF?!), dumping trash, selling furniture on Craigslist(it was so frustrated because most of the potential buyers cancelled the appointment without phone calls. After phone calls and phone calls, I wasn't able to sell my dresser. So I gave it to my friend for free), working full time and packing and carrying boxes to post office by bike(because my husband had shipped his car already. I'm sure I went there at least 10 times)

Me and my husband gonna stay at his parents' house until we get new apartment, but sadly we can't live with my cat because my father in law is allergic to cats. So my husband's best friend gonna take care of my cat for a while. Gosh, I already miss him so much :(

But coming back home is always good.