where we live.

My Dad recently brought up the fact that he has no idea what the city is like where we live.  We were talking about sunshine or the lack thereof, birds, and pollen - I don't remember the details exactly, but it seems to have been a Spring themed conversation, and I mentioned never having seen a bird here.  I have heard a couple.  But I haven't ever seen any....other than caged up or dead and de-feathered birds for eating at the market.  And he said, "I have no idea what it's like where you live."


So, I left the house the other morning with camera in hand to take pictures to share with you.


These are picture of our complex.  The picture on the left shows our side of the complex.  The door to our stairwell is behind that car.

The middle picture shows the front gate of the complex.  Most apartment complexes here have gates at their entrance that a gate guard mans at all times.  Some places are large enough that they will have several shifts of workers for the gate.  Our place has around 5 buildings and is not very large at all.  So we only have two gate guards, who are always there, often at the same time.  We pay our gas and water bills to the gate guards.  The gate guards also give us our mail when it arrives.  And they shut the gates every night at midnight and reopen them in the mornings at 7.


The right picture is of the path we take to get to the gate from our building.  It's not as long as the picture makes it look.

<-----Another shot of our complex, I think there are only 7 floors in each building.  No elevator.

This is our street when you go left from our gate-------->

sitting and chatting outside of
our front gate

Our street has a lot of trees on it, but they are all dusty. The leaves are constantly a gray color.  There is so much potential for a Myers Park type of atmosphere (except with small, dinky trees, instead of huge, beautiful oaks).  Actually, it's hard to tell whether or not the trees are dusty or if because the sky is always gray, everything looks gray.

After about 9:00 every night, the street gets really quiet, as there are no bars or restaurants on our part of the street.  Aaron and I enjoy the peace of the night.  Then about 8:30 every morning, the street starts to come alive as people open up their shops and start to gather around the sides of the streets.


Tea shops open up and put tables out and elderly people gather all day long to play chinese chess, mah jong  (a Chinese dominos like game), and card games.  They start out easy in the mornings with just tea and talking to friends, but by the end of the afternoon they are slamming cards down and yelling at each other.  And crowds gather around tables to see how games of chess are going to end.

Morning tea. I'm not sure whether
that guy was waving at me, or was
trying to tell me not to take his picture

Our apartment is the one above the black sign

The morning group we can see from
our window.

This is the street directly across
from our apartment.  See how there
are tables lining the side of the street.

To the left of our complex, further
down the street is a larger open
area with a lot of tables that fill
with people playing during the day

selling cabbage

Another one of the above place

Multiple times throughout the day vendors on bikes, like the lady above, will ride up and down our street calling out what they are selling.  It's like having an ice cream truck driving through your neighborhood 50 times a day.  Only, there is no ice cream.  There is bamboo, or cabbage, or shoe repairing, or something that I still haven't figured out but involves clanking two pieces of metal together to announce it's presence.