New Digs

Let's play the Price is Right.  Check out my new apartment for the next three weeks in the photos below.  It takes three separate levers to get hot water in the "shower," two of them are in the kitchen.  I don't think this place has been renovated since the late 70s or early 80s.  So it's not the Hyatt, and it's not even the Motel 6, but it's a place to rest my head.  And it seems reasonably safe.  I did take the rusty butcher knife out of the kitchen and hide it in a drawer in my room, just in case.  After that and replacing the sheets, my room is downright homey.  The neighborhood is fantastic because it's totally Chinese.  There are ping pong tables down the way, crotchety men playing Chinese chess, and white-haired old ladies fanning themselves under the trees.  Outside the gate of my little community of Soviet style concrete block apartment buildings, there are random shops, a small grocery store, hole in the wall breakfast joints, and a middle school.  I'm a three bus stops away from the Center, a hop and a skip from the big lake in Nanjing, and still within close proximity to the Purple Mountain.  Perfect for getting back on the running/workout schedule I was hoping for!

I pushed my own culinary limits last night with a dish called "duck blood mung bean noodle soup" (鸭血粉丝汤).  It's a Nanjing specialty and it wasn't nearly as gruesome as it sounds.  The duck's blood was cubed and there were bits of duck liver and stomach.  All of this was surprisingly palatable.  See photo above.

As for the price for my apartment: 50 RMB/night.  Nicer places can go for less, but since I'm only renting for 3 weeks, this was about as good of a deal I could get.  For those who don't live and breathe google, that's $7.32/night.