Moving day

April 20, 2007 Friday

We received an email from Calder. He has his own email address now. He got it because he is looking at a web site about the leatherback turtle migration between Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands. You can choose a turtle to root for and they send you emails everyday about your turtle’s progress. Alec says that he clicks on the duck icon to go to his area of the computer, then on the email icon to open it, and Calder says that tomorrow he will be able to look at the turtles by himself. So he dictated a note and typed his name at the end.

Breakfast (1 flight there and 2 back) and then I went to take pictures of the apartment before we moved in. (It is much neater before our stuff is all over. 4 flights)

We have a small entrance with hooks to hang jackets and a built in shoe cupboard. To the left is the “Master bedroom”.

The previous tenants left some weird things. The blue and yellow thing is really a mattress pad. The beds here range from marble slab to really firm. This pad makes a firm bed out of a slab. This is the bedroom we sleep in because it is the only one that has enough room to get out of both sides of the bed.

To the right of the entrance is the dining room:
And through it to the kitchen:

This is the hot water heater. It is on a small balcony which also has the stove.

The stove has 2 burners – but a lovely view while cooking. I have windows on three sides. This area is just big enough for one person.

Standing with my back to the outside and looking back into the inside part of the kitchen. There is a refrigerator, washing machine, sink and even has granite countertops. Lots of cupboards to store things but we don’t have much and I can’t reach most of them anyway. The thing with the red seal on it is a 5 liter water boiler. I boil all of the water for washing vegetables and dishes. We drink and brush our teeth with bottled water.

Going straight from the entrance is the living room.
We have the two large chairs, coffee table, fake plant and desk.

This is the “media center”. The shiny gray thing on the far left is the steel door. This is a very secure apartment. There is the steel door, a security metal screen door beyond it, and a locked security door to the building.

There is a lot of detailing – notice the moldings, cove ceiling and archway for the door. The ceiling of the entrance is dropped with glass panels with grape vines on them. The door to the drying balcony is etched with leaf forms. And the living room has a paneled chair rail.

This is the drying balcony. There is also an outside rack accessible from the windows here. I will probably never use mine, because it involves balancing a long pole with wet clothes on it. Here is a picture of my neighbor’s:

On the right of the living room is the bathroom:

An outer area with a sink and shelves and then an inner area with a bathtub (with shower) and toilet. There is a tension rod for the shower curtain that doesn’t have any tension. I have propped it between a cabinet and the rack at the bottom of the tub. It keeps the water in. I mentioned to Hongfang that I would look for another tension rod and she said that I shouldn’t bother – none of them work.

Beyond the living room to the left is another bedroom.

We keep our clothes in the closets in this room. Since the bed is moved closer to the far wall, it is easier to open the closet doors in this room. There are drawers built in under the closet for underwear etc.

On the other side of the hall is the 3^rd bedroom. We are using this one for an office and suitcase storage. The bed in this room is the marble slab type.

I had been making notes of the things that we needed, so went to the store for some needed supplies and dropped them off. (4 flights)

I met Chuck and we went for lunch to the Jinke restaurant right outside the gate near the physics building. (1 flight)

We had dumplings and a soup with ham, eggs and noodles. At the Jinke restaurant there is a display of all of the possible foods. You point out what you want to the order taker. Much easier than clucking and making a fool of yourself.

After lunch, I picked up some sodas for the students who were going to help us move and put them in the refrigerator. (4 flights). Then went back to the room to pack up everything so I would be ready when they came. (1 flight)

I had visions of them carrying all of the suitcases across campus, but it was much better. They had a bike with a cart on the back. Everything fit on. There were 4 students so we had an easy move. (4 flights)

For dinner we went back to Jinke since it had been tasty and oh so easy. The order taker pointed out the duck menu on wall. It looked like Peking duck – 3 courses. What a good idea. An easy choice. Up 1 flight to the restaurant. After a bit, a young man came to our table and said, “ The Duck left, sorry”. We interpreted this to mean that there was no more duck. Down we went to make another choice and then up again (1 flight)

We had baby bok choy, warm lotus root and onions sort of pickled and pumpkin stuffed with a beef and rice mixture. Now that we have a refrigerator, we can take leftovers home – so we did.

Back to our new home (4 flights) and fell into bed. I was so tired I ached.

27 flights today.