New Apartment

Well I have been talking about it for a while, but we were finally able to move into our new apartment. We love it. It is very bright with so many windows and so much light. The walls are light yellow and off white which as to the cheeriness. We have brand new beautiful curtains, too. The floors in the living room and bedroom are brand new and are beautiful too. 

Entry Way

We keep our shoes on a shelf outside the front door. We take our shoes off before we come in. Well except this time because Gary brought me a surprise and did not have time to take his shoes off before he came in. I will show you the surprise later. The blue cupboards hold our coats, umbrellas, vacuum, grocery bags, tools, holiday decorations and other storage items.

Living Room

 The chairs with the blanket on it and the one in the corner will be getting new covers soon, so they will be red and yellow instead of brown and gray or having the blue blanket on them. The long picture is a replica of an original that is 4 meters long. It is an old picture of one of my student's home town. She brought it back for us when she came back from spring festival vacation.

We are starting to get greenery back into our apartment. As you can see we have a few plants already.

The plant below was Gary's surprise for me. It is a happiness tree. I think it looks like a small orange tree. He had it put in a special pot with a Chinese picture and Chinese writing on it. What a wonderful and happy surprise for me. The long wall is blank. The part closest to the window will eventually have photos on it, but the part behind the TV will remain blank. It will be our movie screen. Gary bought a very small projector when we were in Hong Kong. It creates a great picture on the blank wall. It is almost like we are at the cinema.

This is Gary's bamboo forest. We think it is really cute and he loves it. He only has to spray it to water it. It will not get much bigger than it is now.

Our one and only desk. Gary uses this. I usually sit on the side of the couch and use the kitchen table to put things on when I am not using them.

So far we only have one wall of pictures. I am waiting for the maintenance people to put in our other air conditioner before I put up more pictures on the empty wall. I want to put up some more pictures of our trips around China too. If we do not have a new picture of you and your family, please email me one, so I can put it up.

Our favorite part of the apartment is the following area. Yes, we have a balcony. On a clear day we can see the sea. We are planning on getting a couple of small, outdoor chairs, a small table and a grill to put out there. We can't wait until we can start to barbecue. We can only have a charcoal one, but it will be wonderful! The view is pretty spectacular, too!

On a clear day, we can see the ocean to the right of the tall building in the middle of the picture above. We can see ships coming and going. It is quite neat. In the picture below, on a clear day we can also see the sea in the open space between the buildings. There is also an island that we can see.

The following three pictures show the campus garden area that we see out of our window and from the balcony every day. The view is so much better than the one we use to have.

The Bedroom

We have two big windows in the bedroom. They bring so much light into the bedroom. The bedroom is much bigger than our last bedroom. We love having so much room.

Gary found this bed online through WeChat. A expat couple was selling this IKEA bed and Gary was able to get it for us. We had two twin beds put together which made a king size bed. We did not like it very much because it was too big. Gary and I both sleep on the edges of the bed at night, so we were never close when we slept. Now we can be close with the wonderful bed. I love the black rod iron.

 The picture on the door was painted by one of the students that I tutor. It is a picture of shrimp. He is very good at only 16. The bedroom still is not complete. I will be moving my wardrobe over to the other side once the other air conditioning get in.

The Kitchen

The following pictures are of our kitchen. It is smaller than the kitchen in our other apartment, but it is very functional. 

The Bathroom

Our bathroom is also smaller than in the other apartment, but we have a counter where we can put things. The shower head is new and it feels like rain. We have hot water at specific times during the day, but it comes out instantly. Yes, we can only shower between 6 and 8 am, and 6 and 10 pm, but we do not have to plug in the water in order to make it hot.

We love our new apartment and are glad to be here. We are grateful that we have been able to have this new home.