Random Shots of the New House in Beitou 北投的家

Folks have been asking for pictures of the house. Well, it's definitely a work in progress. Here's a quick sampling. As you can tell, it's a holiday here, and Mark's taking it a bit more slowly today.

We got there around midnight, came straight from the airport. I opened the luggage, took out my camera and...Why is everything so foggy?... oh, yeah...It's Taiwan!

 The shower is awesome!

This is what the kitchen looked like on Day 1. Lens is still foggy. Brain was even foggier. Didn't have enough synapses firing to even think about what to do for breakfast the next day.

Ping's thinking about where to put the luggage.

Still thinking. At least her synapses are firing.

Studying the garbage bags. Yes, you have to study the garbage bags here. You have to learn when to dispose of 2-dimensional vs. 3-dimensional waste. (No mention is made of The Fifth Dimension. Apparently, all that's long since gone up, up and away.)

The air clears, the mind clears a little, and clearly we have plenty of room for shoes, as long as we don't add any furniture.

My best buddy the pail. We spent several hours dumping water on the floor, mopping it back up, dumping it out, dumping water on the floor, mopping it back up, dumping it out, dumping water on the floor, mopping it back up, dumping ...you get the idea.

Here's what the hallway looks like. It's just 87 cm wide. Doors are 74-86 cm wide. Not easy to get furniture through there. Other than the ancient floor, the rest of it looks very nice! All new paint, new fixtures, new wiring...wow.

Yes, those are our coffee mugs from breakfast on the floor of the shower. Remember what the kitchen looks like? :)

On the left is our Louis XIV hand-carved cedar dresser. It sort of clashes with the Louis Vitton pickled oak armoire and wardrobe next to it, doesn't it? We're thinking we'll need something else long term.

This is actually quite comfortable! We have been used to sleeping on two Thermarests on top of carpet, so the tatames are actually pretty well padded for us! Bamboo smells good, too.

More elaborately carved and gilded furniture here.

After insisting on putting us up at their place for several days (5-star home cooked meals!), YuChi and Alice reluctantly let us move back to the house, but they also lent us a table and chairs! Oh, joy! Back support and something besides one's lap on which to serve breakfast!

Mark makes coffee in the kitchen. Hot water courtesy of Ping's mom. Mama, bless you!

"Hmmmm....if I make it strong enough, will it grow hair on something besides my chest? Wait...there's no hair on my chest either..."

Joy of coffee. Happy Mark.

Ok, this logo always confuses us.

We're not sure we want to see what "Bampoo" is, or what happens when it drips on coffee.

Actually, it's a very clever system for making really decent single-cup drip coffee.

 The new washer and dryer arrive! Two very efficient young men haul them in on their backs, feed them through the kitchen "window" into the utility room, hook them up (note green ground wire on the "ground") and neatly and politely move all the packaging into the living room. Done. Wow. Fast.

Nice!

Ping gets a phone call: "We delivered the wrong washer to your house!"

The same two guys show up, pack up the Toshiba and come back in with the Teco (local brand) below. Oh, yeah, that's what we bought! Now I remember. :)

An elementary school classmate of Ping's (I told you everybody knows her!) took us shopping earlier that day. Since we had the van, we were able to bring home shelves. Ah, storage! Funny how important that becomes!

 A view through the window from the kitchen.

Yeah, that's the washer we bought!

The drain is an issue: the "little strong" (cockroach) loves to get into the house through the drains! I caulked it.

Window panes from the kitchen window into the utility room.

Ping as seen from the hallway through the kitchen window.

Happiness is a bag of recyclable water bottles!

View of the utility room through the bathroom door. Yes, that's our dish soap in the lower left, right by our current "kitchen sink."

DONE! We're gonna use it as soon as we fill that little pink thing sitting on the dryer.

More soon...! --Mark and Ping