Hey folks! Sorry it's taken a few days to blog about our Beijing Apartment, but last weekend we finally moved into the place we'll call "HOME" for the next year. I have to say it's been nice to finally unpack our suitcases, keep up with the laundry, cook a meal, and put the kids to bed in their own room. We're definitely reaching our new sense of normal here in China, and moving in to our place was a big milestone in making us all feel stable.
The building we're in is located in the Chaoyang District in a great neighborhood that is blocks away from Worker's Stadium and another trendy neighborhood known as Sanlitun. We have lots of shopping nearby, both high and low-end, in addition to a great range of restaurants from the local noodle bar to fine dining of cuisines all over the world. The apartment building is equipped with it's own 5-floor department store and a grocery store that carries many western brands (but at a heftier price than having things shipped via Amazon grocery, be prepared to pay almost $10USD for a box of cereal here, yikes!). Also in our building is a Starbucks, a Costa Coffee, Dairy Queen, and Comtoirs de France Bakery, all of whom deliver to our apartment for free (but again, slightly more expensive than the US equivalents). Our Apartment Building
Included in our lease is also membership to one of the best private gyms in the city, the Pacific Century Club. They have a playroom for kids, an indoor lap pool, 5 hot tubs, a weight room, cardio machines galore, and group and private classes for hatha yoga, bikram yoga, pilates, belly dancing, salsa dancing, aerobics, circuit training, and the list goes on. All of us have been most excited about this amenity and are taking full advantage of it. I have gone to my first pilates class taught exclisively in Chinese. Suprisingly, it wasn't difficult at all to follow along, and I was one of two in the class so our instructor catered to helping the two of us work on our form. Here's a link to our gym's website if you want to see photos: Pacific Century Club
We've met alot of the other residents of the building and have been pleasantly suprised to find alot of American families with children Isabelle and Jacob's age. This has been a huge relief for all of us, and the kids are already making good friends and having playdates with the neighbors.
Ok, so back to our apartment. Here are the stats: fully furnished, 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 305 square meters (3280 square feet for those of us that don't do metric), bi-weekly housekeeping service, wine room, 2 tv's, lots of storage, and plenty of room for guests. The Alba Beijing Bed and Breakfast is now open for business. Seriously, we would love to have visitors, just let us know when you're coming! Here are some photos of our new pad. You'll have to excuse us as our shipment of household goods hasn't yet arrived and thus we aren't yet completely moved in.
front entryway
Dining Room
Living Room
Living Room with a view
Office area & Wine Room
Another view of the Office
Master Bedroom-Isabelle watching a movie
Master Bedroom-Still unpacking
View from our room
Master Bathroom
We call it the race track, and it wraps all the way around the apartment:)
Isabelle's Room
Jacob's Room
Guest Room Storage
Guest Room
Guest Room
Kids Bathroom
Kids Bathroom
Kitchen
Kitchen & Breakfast Area
Jacob showing off the other half Bath
Laundry Room
In the next month or so, we expect our household goods from the US to arrive, so the kids will be able to reunite with their toys, our kitchen will be fully equipped, and all the little comforts of home will hopefully make it in one piece and the move-in will be complete! Also, now that we're moved in, I look forward to going back to some of the markets we have found around town and buying some Chinese "antiques" to warm up the decor a bit.
Again, my apologies for being out of the blogging loop for the last several days. My husband and I plan to do some catching up on our blog this week, so look for some more posts soon. Thanks for bearing with us while we take some time to settle in!
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