Feast or famine

Typical, you don't hear from us for weeks, then suddenly there are four posts in a week. Well, that's just the way it goes, I make no apologies for our irregularity, we're just too busy / lazy (delete as appropriate).

I've been promising for a while that I would post some info about our new apartment. We've still only been living here for two months, so it does still qualify as new. As you've seen, we have had plenty of socialising events here including house-warming parties, book clubs, thanksgiving and general eating, drinking and wiing.

It's a beautiful apartment and we're both feeling pretty lucky to have such a nice place. It's brand new and we are the first to live here. Which is great, although it does mean there are a few little problems here and there to get sorted; a shower door fitted too high, accidental free drinking water, nothing to serious.

So, first of all, a few links to give you some background on the compound called 当代Moma. Here you can see some nice, professional pictures of the place. It is in Chinese, so for those of us that don't read more than a handful of characters, you'll just have to click around and get an idea of what's going on.

This article on Treehugger (a green website) has a couple of videos linked and explains some of the environmental credentials of the place. These were pretty important to us in our choice of where to live. So we have geothermal heating, water recycling and LEED energy-saving credentials for the bulding.

Finally, this link is to the site of the Architect, Steven Holl. Some great pictures here and quotes about the compound from around the world.

Finally, just to personalise this a little bit here is a video of our apartment:

Also a link, in case the embedded video doesn't work for you.

And finally, a shorter video of the place at night:

And the link.

In case you were concerned...

about our social lives in Beijing, this here blog seems to suggest we will have no trouble.

In fact reading some of the posts reminds me of some of the nights out we had in China last time.

Obviously this will only be a small slice of our life in China, but it's nice to feel that the fundamentals are in place.

Next onto the luxuries, like finding somewhere to live. So far I am liking this place. It's the indoor/outdoor pool combo that's selling it.

Only 7 days left at work.