Having left a lot of normality behind us it is surprising just how much we celebrate the small things. With the apartment in place we walked to the local supermarket a couple of days ago which naturally caters for the ex-pats in the area. It is only small but it was with childish delight we walked round spotting all the familiar brands that we had assumed we had left behind. Weetabix caused quite a stir and no small punching of the air given that has been my staple breakfast for many years. Add in Heinz tomato ketchup, a good selection of wines and a deli counter selling cheeses from around the world and we were literally chuckling in anticipation. Aside from food we managed to buy a router and now have wireless access to the internet throughout the flat which brings the ipad back in usefulness. Last and surely by no means least we now own a kettle and have just enjoyed our first cup of tea for 6 weeks! Small things but milestones none the less.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Moving in!!!!!
At last we have somewhere to live!! No more repetitive music at the hotel breakfast, no more extending our stay yet again and no more having to go out to find food every night. Yay!! The moving in process was quite painless - our real estate agent picked us up in a large vehicle, although I think even then they were as surprised as us to find out how much we have collected in our hotel room including not only what we arrived with but also what we have purchased on the way - prams for instance. After some discussions with the security we weer allowed to park in the underground car park and made good use of the pram to help transport the smaller bags up the lift.
I hadn't seen this flat and relied on Eleanor's advice that is was fine so I enjoyed looking around when we first turned up. It was mainly empty of furniture - not as easy as that sounds when renting here - and has plenty of space for our stuff. Job number one was to put together the bed that had been delivered from Ikea. Thankfully Curtis - a work mate from Canada - was around to help as this did not live up to Ikea's reputation of being simple and easy to put together and I was beginning to regret not paying the £10 extra for the delivery men to assemble it as well! Having worked for an effective £5 an hour we splashed out on some frozen pizza for tea while we waited for our curtains to arrive. In the meantime the landlord popped round to check out the list of items we had asked to be fixed and took away a few things we said we didn't. One such item was the only chair in the flat - a mistake which became apparent when the short man with the curtains turned up and looked forlornly up at the curtain rails way above his head. Cue some balancing on window sills and reaching up. One rail extended past the window ledge a couple of feet so I volunteered to lean precariously over to make the hook - only to find his hands firmly planted on my bottom to steady me - actually very helpful if a little forward. Curtains in place we happily headed to bed for our first night at home!
I hadn't seen this flat and relied on Eleanor's advice that is was fine so I enjoyed looking around when we first turned up. It was mainly empty of furniture - not as easy as that sounds when renting here - and has plenty of space for our stuff. Job number one was to put together the bed that had been delivered from Ikea. Thankfully Curtis - a work mate from Canada - was around to help as this did not live up to Ikea's reputation of being simple and easy to put together and I was beginning to regret not paying the £10 extra for the delivery men to assemble it as well! Having worked for an effective £5 an hour we splashed out on some frozen pizza for tea while we waited for our curtains to arrive. In the meantime the landlord popped round to check out the list of items we had asked to be fixed and took away a few things we said we didn't. One such item was the only chair in the flat - a mistake which became apparent when the short man with the curtains turned up and looked forlornly up at the curtain rails way above his head. Cue some balancing on window sills and reaching up. One rail extended past the window ledge a couple of feet so I volunteered to lean precariously over to make the hook - only to find his hands firmly planted on my bottom to steady me - actually very helpful if a little forward. Curtains in place we happily headed to bed for our first night at home!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Getting anywhere....
Transport in most big cities is always a bit of fun. Some have slick buses, some easy walking. Beijing has a number of good options and all of it very cheap. The subway for instance is only 2 Yuan a trip (20 pence uk money), probably 10 times cheaper than London. Mind you at times it can be 10 times busier as well but the trains are regular and the journeys normally pretty quick.
If this doesn't tickle the right spot then there are always a lot of taxis around. Mind you the trick here is trying to get them to stop and after that trying to get them to go where you have in mind. Unlike many countries this problem is not one of them trying to take you to the nearest shop to cream off commission but rather a genuine problem of communication. Know where you want to go? Tick. Be able to say it in Chinese? Cross. Have it written down in English? Tick Have it written down in Chinese? Cross. Have a map with the location marked? Tick - no matter this never seems to work anyway. Cue many frustrating (for both sides) conversations which lead to tracking down third parties out to help translate. If you are planning on visiting can I highly suggest getting an app for your phone which can display place names in Chinese! We have a printed book from our real estate agent with the English and Chinese side by side - this has possibly saved hours of our life.
Other options are biking - despite the much higher chance of accidents helmets are still a rare sight even on Westerners but most people do survive. The final choice is to walk - not as bad as it sounds but then the maps here do not live up to OS map standards so it is easy to tack on an extra few km's with ease!
If this doesn't tickle the right spot then there are always a lot of taxis around. Mind you the trick here is trying to get them to stop and after that trying to get them to go where you have in mind. Unlike many countries this problem is not one of them trying to take you to the nearest shop to cream off commission but rather a genuine problem of communication. Know where you want to go? Tick. Be able to say it in Chinese? Cross. Have it written down in English? Tick Have it written down in Chinese? Cross. Have a map with the location marked? Tick - no matter this never seems to work anyway. Cue many frustrating (for both sides) conversations which lead to tracking down third parties out to help translate. If you are planning on visiting can I highly suggest getting an app for your phone which can display place names in Chinese! We have a printed book from our real estate agent with the English and Chinese side by side - this has possibly saved hours of our life.
Other options are biking - despite the much higher chance of accidents helmets are still a rare sight even on Westerners but most people do survive. The final choice is to walk - not as bad as it sounds but then the maps here do not live up to OS map standards so it is easy to tack on an extra few km's with ease!
Friday, September 14, 2012
First time blog
So let's start with the fact that we've never written a blog before
so if there are unwritten rules we break that have experts tutting under
their breath, well too bad we are making this up as we go along.
Having decided to move to Beijing just before Eleanor is due to give birth will either be a brilliant move or a terrible one. Either way I'm hoping we will have a few tales to share.
We have moved from Abingdon, England and have never lived abroad before. In fact we move from a steady job, great friends and a lovely house so like you we are asking ourselves why we felt compelled to take a step away from comfort. Luckily we are adventurous by nature so the unknown held a lot of appeal but if I had to boil it down I would say that looking at our two options - several years in Abingdon or Beijing - we belive that we'll have more stories to tell will the latter option. Let's see!
Having decided to move to Beijing just before Eleanor is due to give birth will either be a brilliant move or a terrible one. Either way I'm hoping we will have a few tales to share.
We have moved from Abingdon, England and have never lived abroad before. In fact we move from a steady job, great friends and a lovely house so like you we are asking ourselves why we felt compelled to take a step away from comfort. Luckily we are adventurous by nature so the unknown held a lot of appeal but if I had to boil it down I would say that looking at our two options - several years in Abingdon or Beijing - we belive that we'll have more stories to tell will the latter option. Let's see!
How many bathrooms does one flat need?
We are deep into the process of finding somewhere to live and there are a few odd things which stick out. Firstly it makes no sense what so ever. For instance we have spent two weeks discussing with one landlord the possibility of them removing some furniture from the flat before we move in. So far they have refused at a slow pace, so slow in fact that the rent that they have missed out on would have paid for all the furniture and more! Odd and frustrating in equal measure. One flat we looked at hadn't been finished and even the estate agent advised us not to move in as the landlord was out the country and it was unlikely to be completed anytime soon. How long had it been on the market in this half finished state? 6 months!
But what I really want to get onto is the love of bathrooms that seems to be in the air. All flats proudly state their total floor area and most are impressively big. However, what they fail to mention is how much of this is redundant bathrooms. Almost all flats have one bathroom per bedroom, one even had four bedrooms and five bathrooms - most which will thoughtfully include a shower as well just so you do not need to repeat during the week. But seriously how much choice do you need in the morning? I'm happy with 'mint shower gel or lavendar?' to start the day. Perhaps the people associate the number of bathrooms with how clean you must be, or perhaps it is just a sign of status that you can afford to have five bathrooms. For me I see it as bike storage space in the making!
But what I really want to get onto is the love of bathrooms that seems to be in the air. All flats proudly state their total floor area and most are impressively big. However, what they fail to mention is how much of this is redundant bathrooms. Almost all flats have one bathroom per bedroom, one even had four bedrooms and five bathrooms - most which will thoughtfully include a shower as well just so you do not need to repeat during the week. But seriously how much choice do you need in the morning? I'm happy with 'mint shower gel or lavendar?' to start the day. Perhaps the people associate the number of bathrooms with how clean you must be, or perhaps it is just a sign of status that you can afford to have five bathrooms. For me I see it as bike storage space in the making!
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