Guzhen

This is where we live. On the third floor which is really the second floor, but also the first floor of apartments above the shops. We lived in apartment 309 next door to Chandler the cook and Rene who are married and Tommy is their son whaaat. 

Guzhen is a very small town in the very south of China in the city of Zhongshan. Most people have never heard of Zhongshan unless they live near it, and people never know what Guzhen is unless they live in Zhongshan. It is the lighting capitol of China and I'm not even swinging that around lightly. (Lightly, LOLZ) There are lights EVERYWHERE. Once we went exploring north of our apartment building for 90 minutes and all we saw was lights and some cool and maybe questionable street food. Anyway, that's Guzhen, so it's kind of boring, but they have a Miniso now and they're getting a pizza place and the German restaurant is hopping so it's getting there. 

We lived right smack in the middle of a huge complex of 24-storey apartment buildings. For the first month I couldn't get over feeling closed in all the time, but it really is a wonder. Most countries live like this, except the US, and even in some places in the US, this is totally normal. Not for me, though, and it was one of the hardest things to get used to. 

This is the school. It's precious, and every inch of the entire building is painted. Walls, ceilings, windows, floors. No joke. 

The hallway outside our apartment. I can't even begin to estimate how many times I walked this hallway, especially considering afternoon ice cream runs and Saturday morning noodle expeditions.

If you go to China and stay in a big international city or in fancy hotels, you will probably never see a squatter. (Grandma, I'm looking at you.) But most residences and non Westernized cities and towns have squatters. I won't talk about them much, but let you use your imagination. They stay pretty clean what with the whole bathroom acting as your shower, though. 

This is Tang and he is the most adorable Chinese man. I don't even hesitate to say that I would probably date him. In addition to being adorable, he makes the greatest spicy noodles and strange fried food in the world. I crave it every day. 

The family who owns the Muslim restaurant almost directly underneath our apartment. Green glass doors and home to the greatest fried green onion pancake. Dip it in spicy soy sauce. Costs a dollar. 

Streets of Guyi, Guzhen. 

Here is the park which we walked past to get to the super market (and also the Chinese snake doctor. A story for later...). 

And a cute picture just for good measure.