lauantai 24. tammikuuta 2015

Looking For a Place To Call Home

Yesterday I moved again, this is now fourth place where I will be living since my arrival in Beijing (1.1.2015). There have been differences between places, but there are two things that connects all of them: Hard beds and a western toilets and that is a luxury because all public toilets and even most of the restaurants etc. have the kind of system where you have to squat to do your things (in Finnish knows as “kyykkyvessa”). Thank god I’m not a woman because then life would be much more complicated, if you know what I mean... ;-)

But back to the places I lived so far. First place was called Beijing Tiantan Wancheng Hotel (rated two-to-three stars), in general nice place Southern part of Beijing just above the Temple of Heaven park but with non-English speaking staff. The room was okay, quite spacious double room with a big window with kind of “French balcony.” Bathroom had even a shower section separated partly (just the sliding door was missing) by glass so the whole bathroom wouldn’t be floating after taking a shower. Stayed 10 nights.

Then I moved to the hostel called Feel Inn where I supposed to have a bed in dormitory shared with five people, but I was put in to smaller “room”, or more like a closet with only one bunk bed and one chair. Room itself was about 2,5m x 1,5m without a window but the hostel had a nice small bar/common room where to spend time. Bathroom facilities were shared, two toilet-shower combinations where shower was attached to wall almost above the toilet. It was even smaller box than my room, where slippers were always needed to avoid getting feet wet! On the other hand, if paying 5 euros for a night there is no much to complain, besides I liked the place. Location was great, only 10 min walk to Forbidden City so like really really central location. Stayed 7 nights.



As I had been moving onward on South-North axis, thought to keep up the same direction. Third place was Yo Yo hostel, quite far from center (close to Longze metro station). To get to the center, I needed to change metro at least once and in total ride took 45 minutes. Super warm spacious double room without actual bed, it was just a mattress on the floor, but it worked well as it was the way room was designed. There was one very interesting interior design solution: As you were in the room, lying on a bed, it was possible to see the shower through the glass window in a wall. That was the only window in the room, which drove me nuts because there was no way to know what time of the day or what kind of the day it was before actually walking outside. Stayed 4 nights, but it was free for me because the company where Baiba started to work, paid the room during her training period… So no reason to complain.


As I said, yesterday I moved again. Back to the city center in a hostel called Happy Dragon (such a Chinese name :D). Room in here is okay sized double room, a bit chilly but without any weird glass walls and with the small window which actually means a lot after living in “darkness”. The plan is to stay here until end of February, a bit more than 30 nights… Hopefully so but we’ll see, it's a long time so who knows what kind of ideas might come up with.

Afterwards I will get my student dormitory room on campus and Baiba will be looking some flat/room to rent.  But before getting that far, it was time to celebrate this new “home” with some fruits (generally tasty, except Finnish strawberries are better) and glass of apple wine (turned out to be a "okay tasty" Chinese product).

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