The Apartment of Dreams

Now I had heard stories of what apartments in China would be like. I have been mentally preparing for months for the most likely presence of cockroaches, the need to wear flipflops in the shower to avoid picking up some sort of foot fungus, and the requirement of deep cleaning the apartment when I got there to even get it to be a somewhat liveable space.

So when I walked in the very first apartment and saw this...

I immediately told myself to not get excited, that this was way out of our budget range and there was no way we would end up here. And then our realtor told us the price. Cheaper than the smaller, studio apartments that our other Flagship friends had found. Jaw drop. I get to live HERE?!

Our fabulously clean bathroom

Our super cute kitchen

Our fancy shmancy living room

With a huge flatscreen tv!

Our little bedroom with a super awesome view.
Side note: the sheets were already there

Our pink and sparkly dividing curtain, haha, my favorite part.

We took it. Yeah baby. Who knew that the nicest place either of us had ever lived in would be in CHINA?

The signing was amazing. Our landlady loves us. She actually built this place a year ago for her sister who decided to live somewhere else. Somewhere else? Have you seen this place? Anyways, she had multiple offers for a higher price that what we are paying for, but she didn't like any of her potential tenants. She was so proud of her space and wanted to find renters who would take care of it and keep it clean and nice. Here's where we come in. She loved that we are American (apparently foreigners have a reputation for cleanliness and a higher standard of living) and she loves that we are here trying to learn more about the culture and language. She kept saying that fate brought us together (the Chinese are very into fate) and that we were "the ones" that she had been waiting for. She later told us that her daughter is currently at Ohio State, and when we told her that my brother just graduated from there I seriously thought she might die right there. She was so excited and said that now she was sure that we were meant to find each other and that things were the way they were meant to be. Hilarious. I prefer to call it a miracle instead of fate, but to each her own. And now I get to have this awesome view.

Welcome to our home!