Apartmenty Goodness

I figure this post is long overdue.  After all, I've been living in this country for three months now.  I know at least my mother has asked about my living conditions.

Without further ado, I commence the virtual apartment tour!

This is what you see when you first enter my apartment, which I share with my roommates Nikelle (on the right) and Paulina (left).  Our apartment is surprisingly nice when compared to the Chinese standard.  Heck, it's nice compared to some dorms I've seen in the States.

A view of our front door, dresser, and desks.  The tv is kind of pointless - none of us care to watch CCTV, the broadcast station that dominates every channel in China, and as we don't have a dvd player... there you go.  Our head teachers have a dvd player, and we borrow it from time to time, but on the whole, the tv goes unused and unplugged.

Just to the left of the front door in the above photo is the bathroom.  Isn't it cute?  Heh.  We have a shower curtain that hangs from a bar across the middle of the bathroom.  In order to keep from splashing all over the toilet, we affix the bottom of the curtain to the toilet paper holder with a hair clip.  Makes for an interesting, but functional, setup.

Here's Paulina and her corner of the room.  She's awfully quiet, but very nice and easy to live with.

Nikelle is pretty frickin' awesome. We get along great.

Aaaaaand... here's mine.  Yeah, I like having stuff on my wall.  It just makes the room so much more lively, you know?  I brought with me to China a few things from home to put on the walls - my Rush calendar, a Heroes poster and a couple of drawings from Morgan and my friend Gloria.  

There's my rock-hard bed.  The mattress is nothing more than a box spring, which was a little uncomfortable at first, but I've gotten used to it.  It actually makes sleeping on my stomach much easier on my back. *shrugs*

I bought this painting in Yangshuo.  Augh, it's so beautiful in real life.  It's really vibrant and... dynamic.  Yes.  Dynamic is a good word for it.  Just below that I have my Rush Tribute Gallery - past months of my calendar that I've ripped out.  Those smaller pictures are photos that I've taken here in China.

From the left: various cards given to me by friends and family since I've been here (thanks, everyone), my beloved calendar, photos of vacations and my students, the sketch from Gloria, a Mormonad from the New Era, a drawing of Thomas and I from the man himself, my Heroes poster (Are you on the list?), and the drawing of Zuko from Morgiefied.  Sanks, Modan!  Oh, and my little pink and blue light-up lantern.  Below are various photos of family, friends, and pets.  Huh.  I just considered the possibility that you aren't actually interested in my wall decorations.  Too bad for you; I'm blogging about them anyway.

There's our balcony, on which resides the washing machine.  On the right is our kitchen.

Balcony shot.  Umm... that's my laundry.  I probably should have taken a picture of the balcony when it wasn't strung with all my underwear, but whatevs.

The kitchen.  It really is as cramped as it looks.  There's a stone-age toaster to the right of the mini fridge and a broken dryer for dishes on the left of the sink.

I bought these flowers to brighten up our room.  Aren't they pretty?  They cost me all of 14 RMB, which is 2 dollars.  They smell divine.

So there's my apartment.  It's small, but that makes it really easy to keep clean.  I quite like it!