Stinky feet

At last nights' party I was asked how we will live in China; what our new house or apartment will be like because surely it won't be like here in America?! Well, my contact in Beijing, Stacey - another world traveler originally from here (thanks Lisa!) said that they had to move all the way to China to move back to America. I.e. in China they finally got a house and standard of living similar to what they would have had if they had stayed in Arizona.
I can't tell for sure until we get there, of course, but judging by realtors' information and different housing compounds' websites; we won't have to downgrade. There are big villas with two or three car garages, communal areas with numerous playgrounds, swimming pools, ice skating rinks (!), supermarkets, spas, nail salons, book stores, pharmacies - western and traditional, and of course; Starbucks!

15 years ago, after three months at the Gloria Plaza Hotel, we moved into one of the first apartment complexes for foreigner who were not diplomats. After three months in a hotel room and also, coming from Stockholm where we had both lived in tiny studio apartments, we thought we would drown in all the space. Two bedrooms, big living/dining area, tiny kitchen and even a balcony. It looked so good on the surface and the location was fantastic, walking distance from Sanlitun and easy to get to by bike both to work for Ulf and school for me. We had a combined washer/dryer; the worst invention ever, a small counter dishwasher, air conditioning and a chance that for the very first time in a long time, use all these appliances and also cook a meal in our own home. And we did, we cooked a meal, we did laundry, we did the dishes and as it got a bit warm, we turned on the air conditioning and BAM! All the lights went out. We located the fuse box but had no clue what to do about the problem and was very reluctant to put our fingers in there, among all the wires with instructions in Chinese.
Our friends Jennifer and Joe lived in the same complex, one building over, and since Joe spoke Chinese, we called him to ask for help calling the management office and the maintenance people.
It took a little while before they arrived; two or three guys, I can't really remember, drunk as skunks. It was a slow night, they had been playing cards, sipping the local fire water and arrived to our place happy, screwdriver in hand. After a little tour of our home, to check out how big noses live I'm sure since the fuse box was located right inside the front door, they scratched their heads, asked for a chair, took their shoes off (BIG mistake, HUGE! The smell lingered in the apartment for hours afterwards...), stepped up on the chair, opened  the fuse box and WHAM! smashed the screwdriver into it. We were stunned, expecting the guy to come flying off the chair, hair standing up and glowing from within but no, surprisingly that did it! Suddenly it all worked again!
Happily they went back to their card game and we never used more than one appliance at a time during the year and a half we lived there.