Our Home

So I never got around to posting pictures of our apartment in Beijing. Here are some pictures I took when I was touring around the city looking. Of course, the apartment is more decorated and lived-in now, but we still haven't bought lamps, anything for the walls, and too many accessories. Mostly it's because we are so busy. Chase and I were thinking about staying in China for Chinese New Year and I suppose that might be a good time to go around and shop.

Here's the kitchen. It's more like a kitchenette if you ask me coming from our lovely kitchen in the Paisano house in Austin. But it'll do. Towards the end is the room for the washing machine. Note: no dryers in Beijing. The air is so dry, everything is dry within in a day when you just hang it up.



The great room. We now have a rug for under the coffee table and it is usually more lit than what shows in the picture. We love our sectional couch. But in some ways it's a bit too small for Chase's legs. He usually sits on the "L" part or lays down.



Our shoe cabinet and entryway mirror.



Our dining room. Notice how the microwave is in the dining room. Not much we can do about that as there is only one outlet in the kitchen and that is for the electric water kettle. At least we don't have the problem that most Chinese apartments have where the refrigerator has to stay in the dining room!



Guest bathroom.



Guest bedroom. Since we haven't had any guests yet, we feel comfortable using this space as our bike garage and our Ayi uses it as her workspace for folding and ironing our clothes.



Our bathroom. We have a tub. That's not so common in Beijing either! Most bathrooms tend to be in the style where the tile floor just has a shower head and the water goes all over the floor. Similar to India.



Our bedroom. We really like the big window that is on the corner. You get a good view of what's happening on our street corner. Ask Chase about it sometime. He watches the people every day while he's working and has some good stories.



Here's the 3rd bedroom which is more like a storage room by American standards. But it now has a large desk and chair and bookshelf for Chase while he works. This twin bed folds up to be a little couch in the corner. So that's where I come in and chat with him when I get home from work each evening.



So I hope you have a better visual of where we live now. It's a lot of space for just two people.
And we feel very happy with our arrangement. We also live really close to amazing restaurants and shops. We we live is called the CBD- Central Business District. It's located in the ChaoYang District of Beijing which is the fastest growing and most sophisticated part of the city. Virtually all westerners live in ChaoYang and quite frankly, we haven't left ChaoYang, except to go to the airport. But even that might be located in ChaoYang. I'm not sure.