Our family did something supposedly completely unheard of here in China--move here to a completely unfurnished apartment. In the US this probably would be no big deal, but now having survived the "settling in process" for the last 3 and a half weeks, I can see the challenge that others foresaw in our zealous endeavor! Nothing here seems to move quickly, so getting a four bedroom apartment furnished, even with just the basics, was a huge chore, and yet a ton of fun at the same time. Pretty much everything we got ended up being somewhat custom made, as I would see something I liked but wanted to have slightly altered. The ability to customize so much furniture is incredible, and something so different from the cookie cutter molds we have in the US, but also makes the process of ordering something (especially considering the major language barrier!) extremely time consuming and complicated! We truly could not have done any of it without our friends who have been here in Tianjin for 16 years, who are familiar with the ins and outs of the process as well as the language!
This photo is of our first night in our new apartment. The kids decided to sleep underneath the stairs of our entryway because they thought it would be like sleeping in a cave! Their bedroom was unavailable for slumber as it had fresh paint on the walls (we decided to do away with the pepto pink in many of the bedrooms as well as the peach on the living room walls!). They are sleeping on their new Chinese mattresses, which are much thinner and harder than what we're used to in the States--but still not a single complaint! Their bunk beds had been ordered at this point, but wouldn't arrive for another week and a half or so. Kevin has joined them on the floor because my mom and I were on the sleeper sofa. Our regular sofa and love seat had yet to arrive, too, and our mattresses that we shipped from the US STILL have yet to arrive in our apartment (we had to wait until we obtained our residence permits for our shipment to clear customs).
So in spite of it being slow going, we absolutely LOVE our apartment--and have been incredibly blessed by the furniture that we have found. We even have friends who have put us in touch with two different places where we were able to get amazing Chinese antique pieces to decorate with. And these are no ordinary antiques! They are totally the look and style we love--rugged and yet intricate in design. We never dreamed we would own such neat material possessions--and at a fraction of the cost of anything you could get like this in the States! We are truly living out the blessings in Lk 10 in many ways!
