Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Our First Apartment (Ever)

We’ve been on the move since our wedding, traveling around or staying at our parents’ places. So the apartment we’re about to discover is going to be our first official apartment.

The apartment is one of the foreign teachers’ buildings, on the southern end of the empty campus, directly across the soccer field, which is circled by the running track. We get our luggage out of the car, say hi to the landlady living on the first floor of the building, and say bye to LJ and the Peugeot driver.

Our apartment is on the sixth and last floor, and the building doesn’t have an elevator. So Yellow’s first duty is to bring all the heavy bags up. And it’s quite the difficult task. 

Our landlady speaks very good English and starts showing us around the apartment. The door opens up to the living room, with an old TV in front of the large window and h a big air conditioner/heater unit in the corner. The only unit in the apartment and it is pretty chilly in here right now. A table with two chairs on one side and a gray futon on the other side completes the room. The bedroom on the left, with a large bed and a wardrobe, is adjacent to an office room, with a couple of desks and shelves. A washer is on the balcony outside this last room, but it looks like the water inside the pipes is frozen. Straight ahead is a tiny little square with a sink and mirror connecting the living room to the bathroom, large enough to fit a toilet and a shower. The kitchen is well equipped with the usual kitchen appliances, even featuring an electric rice cooker.

This looks good, and it’s going to look even better once everything is cleaned. And once that standing water is removed. No wonder there is black mold a little bit everywhere. And for the instructions on all the electronics, they are written in Chinese. No surprise there, but we’ll have to figure out the meaning of these characters pretty fast if we want to know how to use the washer for example. And that heater, because man, it is cold!

We haven't even been here five minutes and somebody knocks on the door. Janay, a fellow foreign teacher from Southern California, is the first one to come visit. She is followed very rapidly by John, who we’ve been in contact with, arriving with a welcome food package featuring a delicious smelling loaf of banana bread, some homemade granola, milk powder, and a jug of yogurt. No time to feel out of place, we are already connected.

   

1 comment:

  1. Ca a l'air accueillant! La femme qui fait la vaisselle....aheum JS tu ne changeras donc jamais! hihi Bises

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