First week in our new Beijing home

A week ago we finally arrived (back) in Beijing after a long 3-day trip from Valencia, Spain. Mia’s parents came to pick us up from the airport at 6am and brought with them lots of things that had been in storage for the past two years. Very good forward thinking on Mia’s behalf not to throw everything away when we moved to Valencia!

We finally could see our new home for real, because so far we only had seen it from pictures. Apart from the fact that it was a lot dirtier than expected (some miss-communication between a friend and us) it is a lovely new home; very similar to our old apartment in this same compound, but with more walls and therefore easier to make cozy.
We both have our own office, something we have been longing for for a long time, and the walls are thick so we can listen to our own music while working. The apartment has a small hallway, a living room with dining table, a large long kitchen, 2 bathrooms and lots of storage space. To top it off it has a great balcony which actually is a lot bigger (10sqm) than we expected from looking at the pictures (2-3sqm)!
In the living room we immediately moved some furniture around to give it a cozier feel and more functionality.
Later in the week we visited IKEA, which is 15mins from our home, to buy desk chairs and other little stuff.

We got internet set up in the first two days and since I carried my iMac as luggage, I fortunately could start doing online stuff quite quickly. We’re still trying to figure out the best way to set up wifi and our VPN (to be able to visit all the sites that are blocked by the Great Fire Wall of China), but for now things work fine. I actually found out that my iMac can function as a wifi hub! My Android phone and Mia’s new Blackberry that we bought on Brussels airport cannot use this connection though, because it works only for other Mac products.

A lot of Mia’s friends have been around this week and I have been able to cook some nice meals, including my famous Coca Cola chicken wings (可乐鸡翅)!
My friend Thomas and his girlfriend also came by for dinner and it was great to see him again! We met each other early 1999 when we were both studying Chinese at Capital Normal University. Over the years Thomas has gone back home or on other assignments a few times, but it looks like he will now also be in Beijing for quite some time. He has set up the company 08|15 bags where he uses ordinary tarp to make cool bags that you can personalize according further if you wish.

We discovered that the previous tenants of this apartment have not been the cleanest people around: they have left us with a massive ant problem in the kitchen. Yesterday Mia found a company that has poison, so after they delivered the powder and gel (yup, on Sunday) we have been busy spreading the poison in the kitchen. I guess it works quite well as today our kitchen seems to be ants free!

Life in general has been fast, every day is packed with things to do and time flies! We have easily adjusted to “normal” (in comparison with Valencia) eating times and we totally appreciate that shops don’t close for 3 hours in the afternoon and also have regular opening times on weekends (that includes Sunday!).

We have had our real food splurge already during our trip to Beijing in June this year, but I still love all the options for good and different meals here!

Near our home a new flower market recently opened, the Dongfeng International Flower Market (东风国际花卉), a massive hall with loads of flowers, plants, pots and other “accessories”, such as fish and aquariums. Over the weekend I went to take a look and I bought some nice plants for our balcony.

Just ten minutes ago Mia’s new desk was delivered, so now we’re both have our own complete working place; bring on the action!