Home, "not as sweet", home

Finally, after 2 wks of searching high and low, we signed our rental contract and moved into our new 1-BR apartment in Sunnyvale on 29 April 2006. Nothing unusual, expensive and still expensive...but we chose the place because of its relatively good location - near to the library, downtown and city center. Borders and Starbucks are within walkable distance. This is a rare find (not implying the rental) indeeed. Well, in the U.S, one block away IS a far distance; and especially for me who does not like to drive (simply because I am VERY BAD in road directions), being able to walk to basic services and retail will be a big plus to me.

Caltrain Sunnyvale is also within reasonable proximity, though not a few foot steps away. But it is near enough for my hubbie's intention to cycle to the station and take the train to work in San Jose. Compared to the station at Mountain View that schedules "baby bullet" (lesser transit stops) trains, this one at Sunnyvale has fewer trains scheduled and does NOT offer the "bullet" version. But since we have already chosen Sunnyvale as our "preferred" city to live in, beggars cannot be choosers and nothing is ideal enough to let us have the best of everything.

Meantime, we could only make do with a rental car and shuffle from place to place. Renting a car is steep due to the insurance involved. Our rental relationship with Hertz lasted for almost 3 months and each month costs us approximately USD2500!!! Can you imagine ? Basic calculations tell us that buying a 2nd-hand car might be wiser, since the car could be sold off at the end of 2-3 yrs and we could still get some(only SOME) money back. Worldwide, this theory never fails : Owning a car IS a liability. Well, since the car (or) cars we rented here were all Toyotas (first a Matrix, then a Corolla SE, last a Corolla LE) and I have been driving a Toyota for almost 5 yrs back home in Singapore, the natural choice for us is to buy a 2nd-hand...ahem...Toyota. Ok. Enough of advertisements for Toyota. Try the Hertz Car Sales. We got ours here. We trust Hertz more than the independent car dealers here. Perhaps we were just too paranoid. But "Only the paranoid survive" (quote Andy Grove, Intel). Moreover, the used cars in Hertz Car Sales are not THAT old, mostly 1-yr-olds (though the mileage could be already as high as 28000miles!), with rental cars' history/record. Remember, if you are a AAA member (say "Triple A"), there are designated times in a year where AAA members get discounts from these sales.

Tag: bay area, singapore, california