Moved In

Welll, the weekend is over and I have moved into the new place. I have been having fun discovering just how undomestic I am. I really only know how to buy dishwashing detergent (which is easy as the packaging loooks the same as in North America) and laundry soap (which boasts the familiar TIDE colors/logo). But when it came to the other stuff, I had no idea which cleaning supplies to buy. I couldn't find any containers resembling the stuff to put on the bathroom tiles to cleach/clean off any mold. I couldn't find hardwood floor cleaner and furniture polish. I suppose I missed it as there were no cans or bottles that said "Pledge". I even forgot to buy Windex (although I am sure they sell that here).

 

Anyway, I cleaned and moved/stored stuff. The landlords left a lot of dirty junk in the place. I moved it all to the walk in storage area off of my bedroom. Then I discovered something wierd. There is a window between the storage area and the bathroom. That means that everytime I take a shower, the water is likely to leak into that area. This is somewhat incovenient. I also discovered that many of the doors open up in the wrong direction. For example, when you open the door to the back bedroom (which has an ensuit), the ensuit bathroom door is blocked. Actually, I think that not much thought is put into designing most apartments in Taiwan. All of the ones I looked at had some problem - bedrooms with no room for a bed, kitchens with no windows... or whole apartments with almost no electrical outlets, etc.

 

I like this apartment as it is bright and having hardwood floors reminds me of Vancouver. However, the designers of the building have ruined this somewhat by combining cherry colored hardwood floors with blondish build-in cabinets and the prior tenants bought dark chestnut furniture. But anyway, for less than 1 year (hopefully), it is MORE than adequate.The landlady, despite having left the place dirty, is nice. She has lent us some of that dark wood furniture. And seeing as we have none, we shouldn't complain. The furniture she left includes a "sofa" 2 chairs, a coffee table and end table. The dark wood has green tiles inlaid and is (in typical Taiwanese fashion" is HARD. There were no appliances, so she brought in a 2-burner gas range... which we have not been able to get to work. The kitchens here almost  never has space for a fridge and outrs in no exception. However, we went out to the used appliance market ion Yonghe and bought a very clean fridge and washing machine.

 

My room is in the middle of the apartment. It is HUGE (the first time ever I have had a closet big enough to actually hang all of my clothes and store all of my shoes. But it has no windows to the outside. To compensate, there is a big frosted glass window with a dragon design in relief between my room and the living room. There is also a narrow window running along the top of the wall between my room and the study. That means that I will definately need black-out curtains for the frosted window... but how to shut out Tommy watching TV until late every night, I don't know. I didn't think about this then.

 

PICTURES TO COME!

 

Anyway, it will be good to live with someone... and Tommy has already demonstrated his usefulness. Last night, he came over to watch TV and eat. As I was cleaning up, I heard him scream, "Cockroach!" Damn! After so many years in Asia, I still fear roaches more than earthquakes or typhoons. He called for me to help, but all I could do was stand far away and yell, "Kill it! Kill it!" He managed to coner and catch it with a pair of chopsticks. This is unfortunate as I thought the place was starting to look pretty clean. Cockroach killer is now on the list of items for the next shopping trip.