First Days In China

My new apartment

"Well, we opened the door less than 15 minutes ago."  It was my first night in Hangzhou, and, having just dropped off my luggage at my apartment, I introduced myself to two other teachers living in my building.  After a short exchange with Trevor, from Northern Ireland, and Ralph, from the Netherlands, I went back downstairs to my place.

Problem was I couldn't get the door open.  After fiddling with the lock a dozen times with no progress, I went upstairs to ask Ralph for help.  Was there some trick to it, or was I just being an idiot (not out of the question)?  Ralph was unaware of any door related problems, but he came down to the third floor to give me a hand.  Unfortunately my lock opening skills were vindicated - Ralph had no more luck with the door than I had.

Ralph was able to get in touch with Sarah, the school coordinator, who had picked me up from the airport that evening (along with one of the school's drivers).  She had just showed me the apartment and introduced me to the guys - she'd left only a few minutes' before my door troubles started.  Sarah was able to call out a locksmith to take a look.  Even his tricks were no match for the mystery door; he had to remove the whole door handle to get it open!  Finally, after 45 minutes, a new handle was installed and I got get in to my apartment!

Once inside I quickly realized that I had another problem on my hands: the toilet had backed up and wouldn't flush.  Not only that, but the water level was dangerously close to overflowing.  Considering the maintenance man and I had used it back to back I wanted to avoid any overflow at all costs (let's just say the mixture inside the bowl is something I'd like to wipe from my memory).  At this point it was after 10 pm and I was exhausted from my long journey; the cleanup could wait.

My toilet did eventually get fixed, although it took a few days.  The apartment handy man had a look,  and was able to plunge it, but things got messy in the process.  That was Thursday evening, the day after I arrived.  On Friday I was scheduled to take the train to Beijing for a high school counselor conference.  While in Beijing (I returned Sunday night) a cleanup crew came over to straighten out the bathroom.

The crew did do their job, but the cleaners left their own mess of sorts to clean up.  They used a cleaning solution, that when dried, turned to dust, some of which was still on the bathroom floor when I got home.  It looked like they had tracked it out of the bathroom onto the wooden floor as well.  It didn't take that long to wipe up, but was just another hassle to deal with.  Once I got back from Beijing, cleaned up my apartment, and unpacked, I could finally take a sigh of relief; time to get adjusted to my new life in China!

(I'm adding pictures from China, but I'll spare you any from a backed-up toilet!)

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