My Apartment -- With Pictures!

This is the one real decorative piece that I have hanging in my bedroom. I see it every morning when I wake up, and I am thankful for support it represents. Lei gave it to me a little while before I left for China, and I love to let it remind me that my family is proud of me for all of the things I do. Well, almost all of the things I do. When I am stocking 6 dozen boxes of tea and almost as much coffee (in the basement of a house that is now full of four kitchens worth of culinary materials) "just in case," they probably feel more curiosity than pride. And, when I am tempted to pack tea to bring with me to China -- yes, I wanted to bring tea to China -- they just shake their heads. Why did I want to bring tea to China? Again: just in case.


This is my beautiful bedroom as seen from the bowels of my apartment. Can you see the papers almost falling off the desk? Grading, writing syllabi, keeping a journal, reflecting on my most recent reads, writing letters back to the 60 students who wrote letters to me -- it all happens on this desk, situated to receive whatever blessings my air-conditioner imparts as soon as it is given life by my handy remote control.


My bed! And a Carrefour shopping bag on the wall. When it comes to food, no matter how little you pay, the flavor is still amazing; when it comes to anything else around here, you actually do get what you pay for. I bought this 3 yuan bag to carry my groceries home in, and it broke before I left the store. Not wanting bright colors to go to waste, I pinned it on my wall as a reminder to always take a sturdy bag with me shopping.


My bookcase is a little too expansive for my current book collection, so it doubles as a shoe rack, triples as a dish rack, quadruples as a vanity,... and provides another nice touch of color to a mostly bare room.


Ah, the kitchen. Please note the dark spot on the upper right. Does that look like a hole in the wall? It should, because it is. Without any venting hardware and with no grates inside or out, it saves us from smoking ourselves to death when we leave sweet potatoes in the microwave 10 minutes longer than necessary. (Um -- when I say "we", I may mean "I", but this is a technicality we don't need to waste our precious time on.) Our almost-mini-fridge is on the left, and our actually-mini-sink is hidden from view on the right. We are going to shop for more shelving soon so that we can store our dishes and food prettily, and free up the range from its current shelf-base duty.

I lost my pictures of the bathroom and its wonderful Western toilet, so I'll have to wait until later to share those. You may not be impressed, but, around here, those pictures would make Westerners cry with envy.

If anyone is curious about what I am drinking right now since I didn't pack my tea from home, it is a highly recommended home-blend of iron Buddha tea with a few pieces of whole anise seed pods. Yummmm =P