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Published: August 29th 2009
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small apartment
3 different floors I think a week of Sichuan food finally took it's toll on me late last night and I was woken very early by my stomach. I couldn't get back to sleep afterward and it was frustrating to have a morning where I could lay in bed but couldn't get back to sleep. We ended up trying to do some forms on my computer but the Chinese characters weren't part of Acrobat Reader and when I finally got them downloaded via the 3G Internet, they wouldn't install so I had to download the latest Acrobat Reader which took forever. Then the newer Acrobat Reader needed a newer version of the Simplified Chinese font pack which was impossible to download so I finally gave up.
I have included a few photos of the apartment in Shaungliu which I thought were interesting. I meant to take some photos of the outside of the building but they are not all that impressive. As I understand it, this whole area is owned by the Chinese Airline consortium (Air China, China Southwest and I am sure some other airlines). The property sits on the edge of the airport and the apartments are only sold to employees
of the airlines. The particular apartment we are staying in might be 450 square feet, possibly less so it is small. There has been much improvement on the inside and I find it curious that given the very small nature, that there are actually 3 different floors if I don't count the 4x4 bathroom which has a different tile because of it's dual nature of being a toilet room and shower. I took a picture where you can see the 3 different floors because it amused me so much to see such a small apartment that tackled each room's improvement at different times with different solutions.
The other pictures are of the sterilizer cabinet. I find this fascinating because I had never seen on in America but I am gathering that all middle class Chinese have them instead of cabinets to store dishes. They wash the dishes, let them dry and then put them into the sterilizer cabinet. I gather that the intent is to actually turn it on and let the heat and ultra-violet kill any remaining bacteria but when I turned it on after washing the dishes, Lisa said I should I turn it off. So I
unplugged it. All of the apartments/houses I have seen thus far simply use a larger or smaller sterilizer cabinet to store utensils, dishes, glasses, etc. Also of interest, they simply do not own forks at all and always use chopsticks or spoons.
One other thing interested me but perhaps this is unique to this very small condo. The water heater appeared to be a gas driven, tankless, 'just in time' water heater. When you turned on the water, you could hear it activate. What I do know is that there seemed to be plenty of hot water in the shower but there was a small problem of getting the temperature of the shower not to drift. Everything I have seen is single handed mixing faucets but there doesn't seem to be any consistency as to direction for hot and cold. Likewise the wall switches for lights are inconsistent and some must be flipped down to activate and some must be flipped up. Little details that you begin to appreciate.
We ate lunch and then cleaned before going to the airport. The flight was essentially canceled so we were left to scramble for another plane. This provided a good opportunity for people watching and I was treated to the Chinese service counter mentality. I think I now understand why it appears that Chinese are 'pushy' because there is no such thing as a line or courtesy when it comes to a service counter in China. It is simply first come, first served and people push, cajole, loudly call for attention and there is absolutely no consideration for 'you were here first'.
We got our tickets transferred to another airline for a later flight that had us arriving in Beijing well after midnight and by the time we got into our hotel room, it was 1:30.
We picked up Lisa's car from the airport and when we drove to the hotel for the night, the streets were fairly empty and it absolutely made me crazy to see her just blow through a red traffic light at perhaps 35 or 40 mp/h. She says to me that she knows which ones have traffic cameras. The second red light she blew through, 5 cars stopped behind us to wait for the green and she was the only one to blow through the red. If I hadn't already seen that blowing through red lights was common for Chinese in Chengdu, I would have lost it but I was prepared for this and had my seat belt on and was grateful for the late night and minimal traffic. I told her that when she comes to America, she will need to learn how to drive again because the things they do in China, you simply cannot do in America.
Another hard bed but I was tired. The pillow seemed to be a bean bag and was hot and I broke into a hot sweat and couldn't sleep. Finally got the air conditioning turned on but tossed and turned until about 5:00 and was woken by Lisa talking on the phone at 7:30 and I was very cranky by that point. Finally convinced her to leave me alone so I could try to get some sleep but it was after coffee and I couldn't fall back to sleep. I am officially a walking zombie. Now that I am in a hotel room where the Internet is very fast, I have little to write and few pictures to upload. ;-(
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