A room with a view

The view from our guest bedroom

Awkward elevator chit chat

We use the elevator in our building almost every day.  Most of the time we ride alone, but sometimes we share with another couple, a group of kids, or the lone old man or woman.  Sometimes we ride in silence or talk to our respective groups, sometimes smile at one another, or my favorite - share cheerful "ni haos".  Every once in awhile someone tries to strike up a conversation in Chinese.  Normally we apologetically say in English "no Chinese".  Last time, however, I wasn't thinking and said it in Chinese.  Well, I tried to say it.  In the moment I got flustered and instead said either "You don't speak Chinese?" or "I don't speak Chinese?" (I can't really remember what I started with because I was so focused on the fact that I had accidentally turned the statement into a question).  The old man laughed at me.

We're trying out Chinese lessons this week.  Maybe next time I ride with him I will be able to correctly put together a statement.  Or maybe I should just stick with ni hao.

Wall Art

The Chinese word for fish (yu 鱼) is pronounced the same as the word for "abundance" or “surplus” (余), so fish decorations are popular during the Chinese New Year.  We've got these fishies hanging in our apartment.

See what we see

Just a few pictures we've taken so far. Today we are at school with a little time to work in our classrooms (or office in my case) so I took the opportunity to use a good internet connection to upload these photos. We're having a really wonderful time so far and have gotten a lot of help from the school to get set up. Thanks for all the comments and emails... I will be better at responding in the weeks to come when we get our ARC (alien resident cards) and can then get internet and phones. They told us the staff can skype from school, after the school day is over, so we will get that figured out too.

On our way to our apartment from the airport

Apartment from the outside

The courtyard we walk through to get to our part of the building


Our apartment!

Cleaning - most of the apartment was very clean, though there is a funky smell coming from down there.

Main road near our apartment

Apartment Pictures