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. :(

room with a view

In 2007, I shared the views from my windows:

• Thru My Windows (Part 1)
• Thru My Windows (Part 2)
• Thru My Windows (Part 3)
• Thru My Windows (Part 4)
• Thru My Windows (Part 5)

And, I thought I'd do it again from our new apartment--we now live on the 10th floor, so the view is pretty good from up here.

First of all we have an entry way (which I totally LOVE--a place to store things and to take off our shoes before entering our home).



From this entry way we can this:


and this:



Our bedroom has the worst view of all.  We can see this:


and this from our bedroom windows:



Our master bathroom's shower actually has a better view that our bedroom:


And, perhaps our study and guest room have the best views of all.  We can see the park right in front of us:



We can also see a department store within walking distance:

And, we can also see down the street in the other direction too: 

of leaves and grass

The summer of 1997 was my first time to see someone drinking tea with leaves.  The leaves were literally bursting forth from this man’s paper cup, and it kinda freaked me out a bit.

I also remember that my surprise at the leaves in his glass of tea amused all my adult students.  How on earth had this silly girl made it through 19 years of life without realizing that tea came from actual leaves?

For several of the years between 1997 and now, I adopted the attitude of sure you go ahead and have your leaves in your tea.  If you offer me some, I’ll drink it, but please just the tea. :)  But, this summer I got really excited when Lawrance bought me a special thermos for brewing tea leaves in.  So, I can have my tea with leaves and drink it easily too.

When I first tried jasmine tea (also back in 1997), I thought it tasted exactly like what soap should taste like.  Now, Lawrance and I also keep a pitcher of cold brewed jasmine green tea in our fridge. (Although, admittedly, the green tea helps with the soap flavor issues of pure jasmine tea.)


And, my newest thing is that I love lemongrass tea.  It is so wonderful!  I could drink it all day long!!  Corrina, our neighbor, friend, and matchmaker, gave Lawrance a lemongrass plant for his birthday.  What she didn’t know is that she was really giving it it me! :D  (Lawrance’s interest in finding the plant was to help me get one.  She didn’t know that; all she knew was that Lawrance wanted some lemongrass.)

Anywho, for two weeks now, I’ve been able to make my own lemongrass tea.  I step out onto our laundry porch (balcony), cut some grass, clean it, and then let it boil for a few minutes in our wok.



As I stood there yesterday, watching my leaves of grass boil filling our home with the oh so refreshing scent of lemongrass, I couldn’t help but think of how much as changed in the past 13 years.

What once shocked me is now commonplace.

What once took me by surprise is now normal.

And, this of course, made me marvel at God’s kindness.

house hunting rejects

First, thanks for the feedback earlier this week.  We appreciate it!!

Second, Lawrance and I are praying about moving, and so I spent yesterday afternoon looking through some apartments online.

It’s kinda of fun being able to do this a husband.  It was always just stressful before. Also, I’m thankful we found an online site to peruse first to see what is out there before we go looking in person.

Here is what we have decided we are looking for:

• around 25-35 ping (approx 890-1,250 sq feet)
• 3 “bedrooms”
• functioning kitchen (providing our own stove top & gas is ok, but we don’t want to have to provide counters, cabinets, and sinks)
• not top floor of apartment building (too hot to cool down)
• if higher than 4th floor, an elevator would be nice
• allows pets
• no or little furniture included (specifically, I want to bring our own mattresses, our own fridge, and our own washing machine–other than that I’m quite flexible)

Things  that make the apartment more attractive to us but are not necessary:

• ceiling fan(s)
• a bath tub (Amanda’s choice)
• elevator (Lawrance’s choice)
• location (close to subway, school/parks, a market)
• more than the standard tiny Taiwanese kitchen
• wooden floor room (we think this would be a great place to have groups over for worship since they’d feel comfortable sitting on a wooden floor*)

There are several we rejected for various reasons, but I thought I’d show you some of the more “interesting” rejects. (Images can be clicked to be viewed full size.)

     
*Outside shoes are taken off at the door, and slippers worn inside.  But even slippers get taken off before entering a room with a wooden floor.  Making it the “cleanest” floor in the home.

apartment tour: our living room

In my opinion, our living room is comfy.  We've not finished decorating it yet.  We have a few more pillows to add.  And, the things along the wall with the TV aren't permanent.

We are blessed by having a huge window in our living room.  And, it has a "window seat"/ledge.  Of course it is too scary to actually sit on since we live on the 7th floor and it is ALL WINDOW. :)  So, we keep wedding photos on it.

 If you were to sit on it and look out across our home, this is what you'd see.

We keep two baskets by the front door.  One for guest slippers and one for Gilby's toys (which he has too many of and needs to declutter).

In between the living room and dinning area is a "little hallway" to the bedroom.  Next to the front door in this little hallway is our shoe cabinet.  And. here it is open and closed.

Here is a close up of the things hanging on the walls in our living room in addition to our new wall hanging that is. 

And that's all for now.  We have a guest bedroom, a study, and a hall bathroom too, but they are still in need of a bit of "spring cleaning" that will hopefully take place this summer.  So, that would make it summer cleaning, but that just sounds so totally wrong!  Anywho, thanks for coming along this week and touring our home from afar!  :D

apartment tour: our master bathroom

Like I mentioned yesterday, I totally love our tiny tropical master bathroom.

All our monkey stuff came from my bridal shower in the States--from my aunts.  

When one of my aunts asked me about the back story of the monkeys my simple answer was "I took my kid brother to help me register. :)

I later double checked with Law about the monkeys and he LOVED them too.  

So . . . as a result, this room saw the largest transformation due to marriage. :)

It truly is tiny. :) (The photo's kinda blurry. oops.)

Some of the really cute monkey stuff. :)

When I visited Japan, every home I stayed in had a calendar hanging across from the toilet.    I have NO clue if it was just coincidence or if it is an actual Japanese cultural thing.

However, I kinda liked the idea. So, every time you hear nature's call you can review your monthly appointments. :)

Can you see why I love it?  Isn't it SO cute?? :) 

Tomorrow, the last day of our apartment tour, I'll show you around our living room.

apartment tour: our master bedroom

We've not hung anything on our bedroom walls yet . . . it is on my to do list . . . maybe this summer.

The doorway to our bedroom is kinda unique.  It opens right up into the bathroom and to the left is the bedroom.

My bedroom used to be light tan and blue.  In order to keep most of the decorations that I have (lamps, wall hangings, flowers) but make it a bit more masculine, we decided to juts change the bed linens.  When I was back in the States, I fall in love with this duvet cover that added a dark brown.  So, my best friend gave us the duvet cover as a wedding gift.

Our closets.  Unlike in America, they are not built in.  Here is a little confession . . . I take up two and a hallf, Lawrance only takes up half of one . . . poor guy.  However, he does get twice as much dresser drawer space--so maybe it's fair after all. Nah . . . it's probably not! :)

Here is totally boring photo . . . but this is what you can see from the bed.  It is our dresser and make up table.  Along with our laundry baskets.  I'm not sure where I got the idea from, but we sort our dirty laundry as we throw them into the right hamper--lights, darks, and towels/sheets.  (I don't like the baskets out in the open, but it is practical and there is no where else for them to go.)

And, that's it for our very simple master bedroom. :)  Tomorrow, I'll show you our tiny tropical master bathroom that I just LOVE! :)

apartment tour: our kitchen

Welcome to our tiny kitchen.  It is literally about 2-3 foot wide to about 7-8 foot long.  We can stand side by side, but passing each other to get back and forth is not easy.

It didn't take long for me to begin to despise what I once appreciated . . . kitchen counter space!!! 

At first I was SO happy with the counter top space.  Very quickly I began to complain again that they were too small.

If you are standing at the door way to the kitchen, this is what you will see:

Stepping past the new fridge, you'll see the sink with the dish dryer over it.  Of course if you want see exactly this view, you're going to have to step outside onto our porch. 

Turning around to the left, you'll see this on the right:

and this on the left.  It is our "pantry."  And, yes, it is all
totally open--no pantries are needed when you shop fresh at the market
daily (which I don't, so hence the need for a pantry).

At the end of the kitchen, if you turn around, you'll see this.

Right behind our sink are double glass doors leading to our laundry porch.
  

And if you come back to the kitchen doorway and look the other way, you'll see where we eat. That's our bedroom door in the background.

This photo taken from our bedroom doorway shows the kitchen/dinning room table and cabinet where we store all the dry baking goods and Lawrance's snacks as well as keep our rice cooker, little oven, and cookbooks.

There are some random facts about our kitchen here.   And, if there's anything else you wanna know, just ask. :)

Up tomorrow is a look at our master bedroom.  See you then!

apartment tour: from the front door

My mom and sister have both been asking for photos of our apartment.  So, I took a few.  And thought I'd share them this week.

Standing from the front door here is what you can see . . .

Looking right:

Looking a little less right:

Looking straight ahead:

Looking kinda left:

And, looking very left:

Coming up next . . . our kitchen.

And, here is what our apartment looks like empty; taken two years ago before moving in.