Our New Home!

Tiffany and I are officially moved in to our new place now. This is the first blog entry from the new apartment! This weekend was pretty hectic. We packed everything up Friday night and Saturday and moved in Saturday. It’s not too bad, since most apartments come fully furnished, so we’re not moving any furniture. But for two kids who came over to China with only two suitcases each, we’ve done a remarkable job of accumulating, over the past six months, STUFF (for lack of a better word). I guess it’s understandable, given that we had to buy a lot of basic goods, like food and sheets and cookware. But still…

In China you can call for a moving van the same way you call for a cab. And in fact, they are run by the same companies. So we called the number for a moving truck and sure enough, it came with the same cab meter and charged us a little more of a base fare, but was free of charge both for the time it took us to load up our stuff, and the time it took to unload at our new place. Since there’s only room for one in the truck cab, I rode in the back with the stuff the first time. That made Tiffany nervous, though (like those movies with illegal Chinese immigrants packed into trucks to get to America, but in reverse?), so the second time she took a separate taxi and trailed us. All together, for two truck rides and one taxi, we paid about $10. A lot better than I ever got with U-Haul!

Today (Sunday) we’ve had the front door open all day, with random Chinese service people coming in and out. For as crude as they can be spitting on the street every few steps, they can also be surprisingly civil. Around 9:30 this morning we got a knock on the door and a Chinese man in a sports coat and briefcase introduced himself as the dishwasher installer (and not the encyclopedia salesman he appeared to be). He made sure to take his shoes off and leave them at the doorstep so as not to track any dirt from outside into our mess of a half-moved into apartment. A few minutes later, the suit-clad internet technician arrived, installed some wires and played around with our computer for a bit, ensured that our internet access was all up and clear, and politely excused himself. We also have a balcony that was enclosed in glass today. And while that guy kicked up a bit of dust (well, he was drilling holes into the walls), he had an assistant who came in to sweep up behind him. He also conducted his death defying work with such nonchalance (as you see him lifting a beam while balanced on our 16th story balcony, secured only by a rope that looked like one of my Boy Scout lanyards). Right now the TV cable man is here, in his black button down shirt and matching slacks. It’s like having the Chinese Tony Soprano walking around your house, making sure that you have HBO. We pay a one-time fee for the satellite dish and then it’s yours for life, and you don’t even have a monthly payment. Of course it’s frowned upon for Chinese to have (not that it stops them), but it’s apparently ok for foreigners. All very friendly and courteous, indoor-slipper-wearing folks, all checking with you to make sure that you know what they’re doing (we don’t, but we watch their hand gestures and nod at their Chinese).

Anyway, it’s been one, long, crazy weekend, but we are sooo happy to get everything set up in our new place. Tiffany already noticed that it is much quieter here than our old place. She hadn’t heard a cowbell or bike-mounted public announcement rider all day! And we’re much closer to work now. Just in time for Spring, Tiffany will be able to walk to work in about 20 minutes, and we’re only 5 minutes from the metro line which I take to work. And since we now have a guest room with two, double beds, we are throwing out an open invitation to come and visit us whenever you happen to be passing through Shanghai!

To the left is the dining room and the kitchen is through the paned glass door. On the right is our new study. We're also on the lookout for a big, comfy reading chair to throw in the corner.




Below on the left is the new guestroom, just waiting for visitors! And on the right is our bedroom, with a great 270 degree view. Tons more light than our last place, which had darker woods and a much heavier feel. I think we'll like this place better :)

Here is our living room. You can see Mrs. Chinese Cablewoman on the left. They just drilled some holes and hung satellite wires down from the roof. Very practical. On the right you can see our new favorite vegetation spot on the sectional couch in front of the tv!

And here are two pictures from our apartment. On the left is a shot to the south of the gardens that run through the middle of our complex. There's a lake and some nice little waterfalls, a big kids playground and a fitness center which we have yet to check out. On the right is the view to the north from our newly glassed in porch (or greenhouse now, I guess!). It's pretty amazing to see the patches of old, red roof two-story homes of Shanghai's past that still pocket the city, surrounded by the glass high rise office buildings that represent today's Shanghai.