After the banquet, I was driven to my apartment which is located in the Nanshan district of Shenzhen. I live in an area where there are about 50 identical seven-story apartment buildings. None have elevators and thank goodness my apartment is on the 1st floor.
Many teachers live in dorms so I’m pretty fortunate to live in an apartment. The apartment has two bedrooms with a separate living area, kitchen, & bathroom.
The pics show the outside & inside of my apartment.
I do not pay any rent or utilities. My employer (my school) pays for that. My only main expense really is food & my Chinese cell phone.
Now looking at the pics, my door is the green door with the Chinese writing above it. I have a screen door plus the main door.
The kitchen is small with a college-dorm type of fridge (which really is on its last legs) plus a microwave and a stove. I’m thankful for the stove too. Many other teachers do not even have that, they have hot plates. When looking at the pic of the kitchen, there is a large window behind that taped, tarp-type of thing. The reason that’s there is because the window does not close entirely, so it keeps the bugs out as best as possible. But I do have bugs enter which I simply have to kill. I do not have an oven. That is extremely rare in China.
You can see the pic of the living area. The apartment has a little patio/balcony area.
The one pic shows the little sink to wash your hands/face and next to that is the washing machine that certainly looks like it pre-dates itself, but hey, it does its job.
The bathrooms in China are where you have to adjust as they’re so different than the one’s I’m used to in the States. There is no separate walk-in shower or tub. Basically when you take a shower, the whole bathroom gets wet and then you just squeegee the excess water. But the water is hot and that’s all that matters.
The bedroom is not bad either. Bed is OK with enough closet & drawer space.
First let me say your climate is tropical or subtropical with the palm trees...your apt. bldg. looks like block or granite or granite facade. nice. Laughed at the handrail leading up to another level, boy does that need painting. Love all the Chinese banners. Must be good luck which is nice. Sofa in red...a fortitious color in Asian culture. Your kitchen- watch your stove burners with plastic or any curtain that close to a stove. Any window covering should come down. Even if you dont have wind..just a down draft things could catch on fire. Dont know if your stove is gas on pilot burner/selonoid or if you have electric. be careful. Indeed your lucky to have a range and not a hot plate. That would drive me nuts. You really dont need an oven and most people younger heat in microwave while us dinosaurs still heat in an oven. Like that everything is tile. Tile can be scrubed down and one way to make tile shine and cut grease is a bit of ammonia in water. Never!!!!!!!!!!!!!mix ammonia and clorox together...deadly. I will alternate. But i use them different days. Nothing beats ammonia for shine and grease cutting. Tile is easier than painted walls, wallpaper, sheetrock, etc so they were very smart in construction there. If the apt. and again your were lucky over a dorm...ugh!!!!!!!!to have them furnish it with pots, pans, linens, and a washing machine, I would be over the moon. Our apt in Okinaw. was furnished and house was furnished and we had a drain in the main floor so i could use a garden hose inside the house and hose down all the dust that came in. We had a dirt road and the houses had no front setbacks and again the Japanese could ZOOM like nuts in the tiny tercels up and down that road leaving an inch of dust coming in the windows. every day...sometimes 2x a day...but I had the energy then...still I loved the place. I had plastic curtains on the windows. I loved the charm and a washer and then got a dryer. We used to have GIGANTIC roaches come out of those drains --Frightened the shit out of me. Had a bullfrog in there. Gigantic............Enjoy the apt. I like it. I would hate a dorm.............
ReplyDeleteThis is Duke. Greg, is that a Chinese flag on the TV? Are there any English speaking shows on it that you can watch? Overall, the apartment looks very nice. I once stayed at a hotel in NYC that had a shower similar to what you describe. The shower was in effect the entire small bathroom, so that everything got wet when you used it. Be good.
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