the everyday stuff

Cultural differences come in all shapes and sizes.  And, one of my favorite cultural differences is keys (I've blogged about them before).  They are so different here.  My first apartment had a "treasure chest" key that I thought was awesome, now our new apartment has a "retractable key" that also has a "treasure chest" key  feel to it and it's super long.  The round gray disk attached to the key allows me to enter our apartment complex's main door, our building's door within the complex  and access the elevator.  Without that gray disk, the elevator will not budge.



The two cards in this photo are also apart of my daily life now.  The bottom one is an subway card--we add money to it, and then zap it when entering and leaving the subway stations, and the cost of the fare for the ride is taken off our card's value.  The top one is a magnetic pre-paid card that I can use to buy train tickets with without having to use coins at a ticket vending machine (pictured below).  If you use one of these pre-paid cards, just remember to always take it from the machine when you leave--sadly, I can give this piece of advice from personal experience to the contrary. :(