One of my favorite Taiwanese writers once wrote about what it was like for him and his wife when their son went off to college. Despite the distance, his wife insisted on driving out to take a look at the son’s room in the dormitory. When asked why she bothered, she answered, “So I have a background to put him in when I think of him.”

Welcome to Bill & Kate’s Apartment

As soon as you come out of the elevator on the 7^th floor, turn right and you’ll see the green door. The bulletin board in the corridor shows garbage collection time and locations, and we share the letter holder with the neighbors.

Come on in! Do not be alarmed by the Okinawa lions and armed robots. They're here to greet you.

Have a seat. Take your shoes off.

We tried to organize each cube in our book shelf with a theme. To name a few, there are the China cube, kiddy cube, South Park cube, and souvenir cube. You get the idea.

We each have our own desk.

Come on! Let me show you the bathroom.
One distinct feature of our bathroom is that there are zebras around. Let me tell ya, when we had that “dinner & a movie" party here, the conversation began with a
discussion on whether zebras are domesticable and it just went all over the place from there. Who would’ve thunk that zebras are good conversation starters?!

Coming out of the bathroom, on your left is the TV room. Bill and I didn’t get cable TV because we want to make better use of our time. However, as you can see here, we find it hard to get things done with an entertainment center that has all 3 video game consoles and a DVD player (Joey, we thank you for the Wii). This room also doubles as the dining room. Right now the only place to sit is on the floor, but it will be a lot more comfortable when the sofa bed arrives on Tuesday. And yes, that's a bar on the left.

A note to Iain: We kept your B-Brothers poster. The other day when we took a walk in the neighborhood, we found his latest work. It’s way cool. I’ll take a picture of it next time I walk by it.

Okay. Our bedroom is opposite the TV room to the right a bit. It’s a big bright room in an upside-down L shape. We’re currently in the process of putting up some bamboo blinds to soften some of that morning light. Nuage was kind enough to demonstrate how blinding the light could be.

Last but not least, the kitchen! It’s small yet sufficient (well, for some reason, kitchens in Taipei are usually the smallest room in an apartment). The fact that our kitchen shelves and spice rack are packed with stuff makes it feel homey.

So this is it! Though the apartment has been, and probably will still be, an ongoing project, we like it here, and we hope you've enjoyed the tour in our place.