RLC 01 – Welcome to Xiamen HQ

Greetings, all!

It is my great pleasure to let you all know that, in spite of excessive baggage, storms, storm-related delays, obnoxious airline passengers, delay-related delays, tiny hotel rooms, carrier-locked phones, crazy traffic, inability to communicate on anything but the most basic of levels and sweat (SO. MUCH. SWEAT. I’m not even joking), we have FINALLY settled into our new apartment. And, due to popular demand, I am here to give you the tour.

Shall we?

Judging by the 80-something Likes they got on facebook, I’m guessing most of you have already seen the photos I took from our balcony, but just in case you haven’t:

Yup, that’s the view from the 30th floor. I’ve run down the stairs a couple of times, but haven’t quite mustered the courage to make my way up them. At least the elevators are nice and quick. And while I know it sounds a little crazy and is probably all in my head, sometimes when taking the elevator I can feel my ears popping, not unlike during a flight. But there’s no way, right?

Anyway, you get to the 30th floor and walk in through the door. This is the sight that greets you.

spiffy.

Those of you who managed to visit might remember our previous apartment was really quite nice as well, so our standards were set pretty high, but I dare say we’re… moving up? Eh? Eh? Oh, fine.

So, this is the living room, comprising the work space

not pictured here are the lovely hanging lights that I hit with my head EVERY TIME I stand up on the kitchen side of the table.

the chill space

dat couch tho.

and the media space.

the huge TV really helped me feel at home almost immediately. I’m still not entirely sure what’s in the rest of the apartment.

Aside from the exit, there are three doors in the living room. The first leads to our new kitchen.

the left side of that big-ass fridge? yeah, that’s the freezer.

It’s actually probably the biggest kitchen that we saw in any of the apartments we looked at – quite roomy by Chinese standards. Oh, and there’s more: the door on the right in the first photo leads to one of our two bathrooms.

early on I claimed it as my own, but the wife has been using it as well. you would think this sort of thing wouldn’t happen with two people two bathrooms. and yes, there is also a sink, but I had trouble framing the shot, alright?

And that’s STILL not it, because there’s yet another door that leads to a tiny little balcony that houses the washing machine.

the end of this particular road, though there are windows for the especially adventurous.

The second door leads to the guest bedroom? I think? We’ve not yet decided exactly what purpose this room will end up serving, but we’ll figure it out eventually.

could you tell this used to be a kid’s room? I do love those stickers, though.

the owner of the apartment left us… a few DVDs. not that I mind in the least.

The third and final door leads to the master bedroom

the bed is actually long enough for me to sleep in without my feet dangling over the edge! not the norm here, btw.

the closet doesn’t look very large, but its actual clothing capacity is shocking – some really well-designed stuff.

and the master bathroom.

not very large, but it certainly gets the job done.

And, of course, there is also the lovely balcony.

we will be spending much more time here once it stops functioning as a greenhouse, I suspect.

So, there you go, a quick and dirty (because that’s the way you like it, Matīs) tour of our lovely new home. We really have been exceptionally fortunate and blessed to find such a wonderful place – huge thanks to both our agent, who has been fantastically helpful throughout this crazy process, and the owner of the apartment, who has been amazingly accomodating and forthcoming as well.

And thanks to everyone who has been writing us or even just keeping us in their thoughts. I will definitely do my best to keep you posted, and expect to see much more from me, both in terms of our trip, living in Xiamen, and an assortment of other stuff I’ve been meaning to do for some time.

So, who wants to visit?

lots of love

Stay tuned for the next episode of Rihards (‘n) Liga (in) China – Planes, Trains and… no, it’s pretty much just planes.