Sneak peek

By popular demand, photos of our new home in China. Keep in mind that it looks more put together (and clean!) than it really is.

We live in a neighborhood called "Surf Plaza." It is directly across the street from Old Stoneman Beach (Shilaoren), but we are at the back of Surf Plaza so we're probably 300 or 400 meters from the beach. Closer than in Korea, but we can't see it from our house (which we sorely miss, ocean views are definitely not overrated!). Surf Plaza is a walled compound with two entrance gates and guards in uniforms and fuzzy black Comrade hats standing at attention. Every morning we wake to the sound of the guards marching in high-stepping formation under the direction of a drill sergeant. There are roughly 50 homes in Surf Plaza, the streets are all cobble and narrow, and there is no thru traffic which is great (but still not all that safe) for the kids. By my estimate, at least 20% of the homes are unoccupied.

Here's our street. Our house is the second on the right, the one with the big chimney (but no fireplace). There's snow on the ground from the previous day's fall, and its still below freezing. I don't think the temperature has risen above freezing since we've been here. Vivi is wearing the snow suit her Busan friend Mathilde gave us before her family moved to Qatar (where she really wasn't going to need a snowsuit!). I am so grateful for the snowsuit because it allows for full-on outdoor play.

Proceeding to the most important site in the compound: the playground! Its a little scrappy, but it is large and on grass (of sorts) instead of concrete. It is surrounded on all sides by hedge which does a nice job of pinning the kiddos in. It has the usual gear: swings, seesaw, slide, plus benches and tables for the supervisors.

Let's go inside. Here's the most important site in the house (and the reason we chose this house): the kitchen. It is enormous and reasonably well-equipped by Chinese standards (that means, it has a three-ring cooktop instead of 2, and it has an oven!). We also installed a dishwasher, but the only one we could find is so small that it literally will not accommodate a dinner plate. I looked at many, many homes and most of them had Chinese-style kitchens, which means about the size of a shoebox with no windows. Its a lifestyle difference: Americans (and other Westerners) spend more family and friend time in kitchens than the Chinese. For the Chinese, the kitchen is a place to cook, then leave. For us, its like a family room. I feel really fortunate to have such a nice kitchen!

The dining area is next, notice that all our furnishings are those from Korea. We still don't own them (Nike does), but we were fortunate in that we were able to bring them with us from Korea, rather than having to start again buying furnishings from scratch. The entire house interior was re-surfaced recently, due to water leakage, so the walls are all freshly concreted and painted. The ceilings are quite high, and the lighting is excellent. The dark wood beams are a nice touch. The floors throughout the house (except the kitchen) are faux-wood laminate. Downstairs the floors are rather nice, but upstairs they're pretty tacky.

The living room adjoins the dining area and is elevated by one step and separated from the dining by a built-in shelf partition. The room is octagonal, which is a rather awkward shape as far as rugs go. The entire downstairs is rather dark, except in the morning, because we have heavily overhanging terraces off the upstairs rooms.

Lest you think that we're nicely settled, here's the view of the 2nd floor hall at the top of the stairs. Its still a bit of a staging area for unpacking. As we have no furnishings for this room, and the lighting is quite good, we are going to make it into our "art gallery." Guess we'd better get some art!

Vivi's room is the largest bedroom in the house, but also the only one that doesn't have an adjoining bathroom. I wasn't comfortable with her having unfettered access to a bathroom, so we moved her in even though I think this room is not the best room for her. The advantage is that she has loads of room to make a mess. The disadvantage is that she has loads of room to make a mess.


My studio is next. I would have preferred this room for Vivian but its a little dark and it has an ensuite bath (which I will cleverly use as a leather storage room). I just unpacked the studio last night, so its not arranged quite right yet, but the basic elements are in place.


The master bedroom has a modern built-in bed wall unit that I actually quite like. Its a nice sunny room in the morning hours, till the house across the street casts its shadow. It has loads of closets that have essentially nothing in them to help organize belongings. The closets basically eliminate the possibility of having a chest of drawers, so all our clothing is in heaps inside. Its a mess, I promise.

Finally, the third (yes, third) floor. This house is way too big for the three of us. The third floor consists of a nice storage room and a lovely large room with sliding glass doors on either side with access to large terraces. I kick myself for not claiming this room for my studio as it is big, bright, and cheerful. Instead, it will eventually become a family room/play room, with the barbeque outside. But probably not until the weather gets warmer as it is quite frigid up there right now. Our house is heated by radiators off the city heating plan (which "guarantees" to heat a house to a balmy 18C (64F). That's just a soft guarantee, though. This morning my studio was 11C (52F) and the 3rd floor room was 9 (48F). We have electric heaters that help out considerably.

The house also has an assortment of bathrooms (four, one of which is a storage room and one of which doubles as laundry), an office, a guest room that is rather dingy and grim (that I'm working to improve, Mom!), a garage, and a door to the back yard that opens from the kitchen. It is really a quiet neighborhood, and the public areas appear to be well maintained. Quite a few expats live in the compound. There are three other families with three year old kids on our block, two Swedish families and one Chinese/German. I have also met people in the compound from Mexico, Chile, Switzerland, and I hear that there are also Italians, Koreans, Japanese, and of course, Chinese. I think as the weather warms and people come out more, it will be a lot of fun for Vivian, and for us. Bruce and I are really looking forward to being able to sit outside and barbeque!