Our place and Russia

So first things first, we have a place in Beijing - a serviced apartment near the 2nd ring road. For those unfamiliar, Beijing is laid out in concentric roads around the forbidden city. There are a total of 7 and the smaller the number, the close to the forbidden city.

Our place is small but still has a bedroom, a living room and a kitchen. The building caters to expats and locals alike which is a bit reassuring as our Mandarin skills are virtually non-existent.



We've very fortunate in that daily maid service is included with our place. Aside from washing some dishes, everything else is taken care of by our team of not one, but three Ayis. On the dishes part, we must have the smallest dishwasher in the world (yes, one bowl takes up 1/4 of the machine).

From Beijing

The service is wonderful but I'm afraid that we'll get too used to this type of service.

For unknown reasons, we've been put up in the Russian district of Beijing. Nearly every nearby building has Russian lettering and most of our neighbors are Russian. It's quite funny as outside our building, people are more likely to speak to us in Russian rather than English or Mandarin. A block or two away houses what must be the biggest fur coat mall in the world - definitely targeted to Russians. The bottom level of our building even houses a Russian bar, sure to serve up lots of Vodka.

Oh, and every night we get a call asking "you want message?" If I answer, a girl asks, and if Noel answers, a guy asks...there is always a slight delay for them to figure out who should talk. They promise to be very cheap, but I don't think we'll ever take up the offer.