When We Found a Home

We are finally mostly settled in! The last few days have been a whirlwind trying to find a safe apartment for a good price, get things we need to live, and figure out this whole living-in-Nanjing thing.

Finding an apartment has been quite the adventure. The Flagship office wanted us to use a realtor, so we were introduced to one and she started to show us houses. We were expecting to pay much less than we would in the US, but found that for where Flagship wanted us to live (close to campus in Nanjing), this would not be the case. We were shown place after place with one (or not even one) bedroom where they were asking for more than we paid for our 2 bedroom apartment in Provo! After backing out of one deal and secretly switching realtors on an apartment we looked at with our first realtor, we FINALLY found a place!

Should we live here?

Or in this lovely brick house?

What about a 50-story building? (This is really where we live.)

Welcome home!

Let me tell you. This placed seemed pretty nice when we looked at it. The next day, though, we brought our things in and Jaren left for school. That’s when I almost had a meltdown. It smelled like dog, I couldn’t breathe in the bathroom, and it was dirty dirty dirty. I sat with Miss A on the plastic covered mattress, scared to move or touch a thing.

I don’t know if this is a “Chinese thing” or just our luck, but the apartment had not been cleaned at all before we moved in. We’ve spent the last three days scrubbing, sanitizing, and bleaching. Although the bathroom still has a distinct odor and our dog hair couch is covered with a blanket, it is starting to feel like a home. I can even let Miss A play on our floor now.

Would you like a tour?

Here is our kitchen with TWO electric burners (that we can't figure out how to use) and a microwave (very uncommon in a Chinese home)!! The counter doubles as our table and we must share the one stool.

Our little washing machine (no more waiting until we have absolutely nothing left to wear before doing laundry for me!)

The walls are painted green and there is clear, plastic panels covering them.

Our living room...

Doubles as our dryer and an extra bedroom. The couch folds out in to a bed, but we are hesitant to sit on it even with the blanket covering it.

This is also in our living room-a little refrigerator.

A real shower!! (unlike many of the places we looked at where a nozzle sticking out of the wall=a shower)

The blue water hides the grossness left after hours of bleaching and scrubbing. It is much better, but I still plug my nose the ENTIRE time I am in the bathroom. We have noticed that certain times of the day are better than others. I might need to keep track of that and plan my bathroom visits accordingly.

Our bedroom doesn't have a door, but it is around the corner. Miss A hasn't had too much trouble sleeping at nap time.

Our bed that makes my hips hurt it is so hard (but we haven't had any trouble sleeping so far so no complaints!)

The lovely view from our window. If you look down you can see some trees, along with trash strewn on the beams from our neighbors' windows.

AND the place where Miss A will now get a full night's sleep!