From Grits to Chopsticks

In China, apartments are individually owned (like western condos).  So when our landlord needed to move back into his apartment, we had to find a new place to live.  Fortunately, we were able to find another apartment about 100 yards away in the same complex:Our new apartment is on the 16th floor near the top-center of the picture (the only one without a glassed-in porch).  Some friends welcomed us with flowers for Susan:This open porch will give everyone in the surrounding apartments a good view of the foreigners and their laundry.  The new apartment is not as nice as our old one and needed a lot of cleaning and repairs before we moved our stuff.  We spent a day cleaning the kitchen, the drain on the kitchen sink needed replacement,and some of the cabinet doors were loose and only attached with a single screw: The curtains were grimy, so Susan washed them, dried them on our old porch, and we re-hung them: The master bathroom needed a lot of help.  We pulled out the old sink and scraped/scrubbed the walls and floor:replaced the sink/vanity,and installed a light fixture (simple bare wires were protruding from the wall):Since the move was nearby, we transported a lot of stuff ourselves:For the big stuff, we hired “Ant movers” (notice how their truck looks like an ant from above): We still have a long way to go before the apartment becomes “home,” so we will be busy when we return to China next week!