COUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON

My new apartment in Beijing is the swankiest and most luxurious place I've ever lived. We're talking security guards, underground garages (for bikes too!), marble-topped tables, and all that is shiny and new. Witness:

We're about halfway up.

Here is the living room. It is much brighter than this in actuality but the camera was being weird. The walls are still quite bare, but it'll get there.

These windows overlook the central courtyard for the complex, bordered on the other side by the dorms for the adjacent forestry college.

The dining area and the pitifully stocked bar are connected to the massive living room. It's a little overwhelming to have all of this space, especially since any time I'm not at home bodies and vehicles of varying kinds are always multitudinous and usually in too-close proximity.

Note the stainless steel cabinets and the Mark Siano Soft Rock Spectacular flyer on the fridge. Fancy AND timely!

The kitchen looks small here because we had to move the fridge into a strange position. It formerly occupied a small room of windows which lies between my roommate's bedroom and the outside (we think it was designed this way to enable supervision of children). Although we agreed that it would surely be quirky for me to be able to wave hello to Jessica studying at her desk while I was grabbing a beer, we also thought it might lead to her wanting to throttle me. This arrangement is much better.

The bathroom. Almost every "shower" in China is like this one. Its a little gross if you haven't grown up with it but it certainly makes it easy to keep the bathroom clean.

The ginormous hallway leading to my bedroom. All our shoes live in the fold-out cubbies on the left and we wear slippers around the house to keep out the city filth. All ye who plan to come visit best send me your shoe sizes.

My bedroom, which is clearly awesome. The windows overlook the manicured grounds of the Institute for Research on Semi-Conductors, as well as a lot of other tall buildings and construction cranes. Supposedly you can see the Summer Palace on clear days, but no word on when there might be one of those.

The Summer Palace isn't actually too far though. I took a cab there last weekend to go out on the lake with Vanessa's friend Oliver and some of his classmates. The group was a bit rowdy, perpetually trying to crash into other boats and even docking briefly for a beer run, but it was so pretty and pleasant that it didn't matter.

The boats:

(We had the green-topped kind that seated six)

The dock:

The setting sun:


[Sorry to disappoint, but this post doesn't actually contain any hidden dragons - I just thought it would be a better title than "The Scarlet Pleather."]