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Yes, that is what our building is called.  Each building around here has an interesting name.  Endless Love… Lilly Villa… Moon View… A building can look like crap but have a really great name.  Our building is the new MAT building, owned by another company but rented to MAT.  It’s brand new - in fact, the building is still under construction (from 8am to 9pm BAH!!).  I think today is the first day that the elevator is supposed to work, which means not having to traipse up the tiny boat-like stairs for four floors with bags of groceries (or like yesterday, my sweet husband, carrying up bags full of a new cappuccino maker, a blender, and a wireless modem thingy set up - and THAT is the technical name by the way).  Our apartment is starting to feel more like home than in these pictures, but it’s just to give our families at home (and any interested party) an idea of what living here looks like.

Allow me to take you for a tour :

Our front door, which requires a key to enter, and a key to exit (so you CAN get locked inside your apartment if you can’t find your keys…which is smart smart smart.).  Just outside the door to the right is an elevator (just an empty and dangerous shaft in this picture but now almost complete) and stairs on the left.  Giant windows across from our door in the hall way.  There’s a little light and a doorbell out there for us too.  Also note the small size of our fridge.  Apparently we are on a diet.  To the far right is the little door that leads to our little balcony.  Great for drying clothes or sitting with a kitchen chair and reading a book.  It’s super windy between our building and the one across the street so the area is not ideal for much else.

The kitchen and laundry room.  No oven/microwave/toaster oven…so I heat up left over pizza on a frying pan which is interesting.  The top load washer to the right is the envy of a lot of older buildings with equally archaic equipment for laundry business.  There are no dryers here - things dry pretty fast in the AC and on the balcony with a drying rack.  In the foreground is all our luggage.  FINALLY we can live out of a closet!  Sort of…it’s super small, so I am still using a bin or two.

Our common area beside the kitchen.  Two chairs and a couch - all highly uncomfortable but look sporty.  And our ginormous TV!  Which still isn’t hooked up yet.  We have lots of large openable windows so the evening breezes are free to come into our apartment as is the light from 6am to 6pm.

The left is our house mate’s room, on the right, is ours.  We have two windows which is lovely.  One ahead and one to the right beside our bed when you walk into the room.

Our little bed space.  WHAT IS UP WITH THE HARD AS NAILS BEDS IN ASIA???  Someone send us a foamy fast!!  You can’t buy them here.  Only thick rolls of foam that go for 150 bucks a pop.  There is a ceiling fan in our room, two fluorescent lights and a tiny wall light above the cupboard thingy to the left in this picture.

We have our own bathroom - thank goodness.  Oddly, the shower is practically on top of the toilet.  The whole bathroom is made to be wet.  So keeping toilet paper, kleenex and q-tips out of harms way is an interesting problem.  Also, the toilet is soaking wet after every shower.  So now we have a special towel for wiping off the seat post-shower so wet arses aren’t a common problem.  There is also a little window in the bathroom next to the sink to the left here.

So life is comfortable, we are feeling more settled now.  And we are very excited to start using the elevator