Well we're movin on up

To the east side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky...

Since I have taken you back in time with the beginning of this post, (follow the link if you don't recall the reference), I will now whisk you away to a time long ago in December when we were essentially evicted from our apartment when the government decided to tear it down and build high-rises at some point in the future.

But, we are nothing if not resilient and we (think) we took it all in stride.  We searched furiously for a new place and finally found one that was in our price range and the landlord was willing to be above board on his end.  And, aptly, the song lyrics actually describe our situation: we moved to a four-story building and moved up to the third floor,  we are now on the East side of the main thoroughfare (Rudaki Avenue), and the apartment is definitely more de-luxe than the last one!

Here's some pictures of our new place:

Outside the "back" of our building.

I call it the back because there is actually a driveway on both sides, 

but we enter through the opposite side.

 This is a much larger building than we were in before.  This one was built in the 50's as well.

Nice balconies for all the apartments.

 This is a parking area at the end of the building.
The building in the distance is the next complex over from us.

On the "front" side.  You can see the parking area (with storage sheds/garages).

The grounds are kept cleaned up.

Moose likes to use this Vinca to leave pee-mail for the cats that wander around outside. 

The drive way on the front side.  

During the summer, this is nicely shaded and will keep it cool.

Our kitchen window (3rd floor, above the wooden windows).

We look out onto a nice evergreen tree.

It's some kind of conifer, but it has small ball-shaped 

"cones" that I have never seen before.

This is one of the "cones" that come off the evergreen tree outside.

The front entrance to our stairs.

This building has 3 entrances like this.

If all of them are the same, there are a total of 24 apartments in this building.

Concrete and stone.  This gets quite cold when the weather is bad.

 What I do like is the switch for all the levels is at the first floor.
I have changed out a couple of burnt out bulbs so we can see the stairs.

The remnants of the mailboxes still hang in the foyer.

These doors open to the "back" side, but they are padlocked

(presumably to keep this from becoming a pass-through for people).

After 3 flights, moose gets his exercise just going outside and back :)

Inside the entrance.  There's a long hallway with the kitchen to the right side,

dining/living room to the left.  Master bedroom is straight ahead.

Bathroom is around the corner to the right.

There is a small shoe closet by the front door and a larger coat closet 

just past the kitchen door.

The dining/living room has double doors.  

We usually keep one open all the time.

Apartment came with a large (8 seat) dining table.

Sharon and the school Community Outreach group is working on a 

silent auction to help fund a clinic that treats tuberculosis (TB) patients.

All the artwork that will be auctioned off (on the table) is art done by children with TB.

I can't say hardwood because the floors are pine, but there's nice wood floors

with a lot of character in the dining/living room.

This was a "Club Paradise" shot... 

(Must have shot it from way up here with a wide-angle lens. Maybe a fisheye or something like that.)

When we moved in, all the furniture was pushed against the walls (Tajik style)

so we moved things around and created separate areas for dining/living room functions.

 Panoramic photo of the living/dining room.
This room is ALMOST big enough to put our entire old apartment in.

If you include the balcony or the spare bedroom then it would fit.

Spare bedroom.  Not much here except a bed and a wardrobe.  

We use this room for clothes drying (rack) and storage.

This apartment has had all the balconies enclosed.

Makes for good storage areas, but it blocks a lot of the light :(

 You can see the grid-work on the outside.  Of course, during the summer when the

sun is on this side all day, this will help keep it cooler.

Looking out to the back side of the building.

Across the way is another (much bigger) apartment building.

To the right of the entrance there is a long galley-style kitchen with a breakfast area

at the end (this is a closed-in balcony that was incorporated into the kitchen).

We now have two working burners!  For those of you keeping score at home, 

that's 100% MORE than we had at the old place :)

The kitchen was well equipped with dishes & pots/pans for cooking.

However, we had to buy a microwave, toaster, and water dispenser as these were

furnished in our old place, but not in this one.

That's bread dough rising under that tin of cookies :)

We have started making home made bread.

We are told that the hot pepper bread is really good.  

The "pantry" is a little small, but we make due.

Note the Jif and the Ziplocks... both had to be brought into Tjk as they

don't have them here.

If anyone wants to put together a care package with Jif, microwave popcorn, 

and skittles, I'm happy to fill out the customs paperwork for you :)

Down the hall and to the right are the bathroom facilities.

Door to the right is the toilet and water heater.

It's a small space, but it works.

Water heater above the toilet.

We bought the wire rack on the left side for storage space.

My back was against the wall to take this photo...

Larger washer than we had before, and this one stays in 

one place when the spin cycle runs!

We put in the shower caddie as well.

Thank goodness for zip-ties and existing pipes, otherwise, this thing

wouldn't have stayed in place.

Another panoramic photo (that's why the tub edge looks curved)

This room with shower, sink, and washer is as large as (possibly larger than) 

our old bathroom that also had a shower in it.

Nice 5Kg capacity washing machine by LG.

The heating element doesn't seem to work, but that's OK since

most of our stuff we wash in cold anyway.

Master bedroom is a little larger than the old one.

 This is a blurry photo, no need for an eye exam...probably.

The master bedroom has a nice vanity and mirror.

There's a lot of light even with the enclosed balcony.

 Less wardrobe/storage space than the old apartment, but we don't have that much to store.

Panoramic of the master bedroom.

The location is good since it is pretty much centrally located and within walking distance to most places (we walked to the Zeloyoni Bazar (green market) Sunday which is about 4km one direction).

 We are about 1/2 block off the main Ismoili Somoni Avenue, but since we have the other buildings between us and the road, the noise is non-existent.  Additionally, with the closed-in balconies, the sound-deadening is even more substantial.  We sometimes hear our neighbors, but not the noise from outside.

One of the best parts is the new apartment is only a few minutes walk for Sharon to the school.  Before, it was either a bus ride or a taxi ride to get from home to the school so we're saving money with this new location.

There you have it folks, our new digs for the remainder of our time in Tajikistan.

Back In The (Former) USSR!

We sincerely hope that everyone who has been reading this blog for the last few months had an exceptional 2013! 

Hopefully, while we were away, you had a Christmas 

and New Year that was fun, happy, and filled 

with friends, family, and lifelong memories.

_________________________________________________________________________

We have returned from our 3-week vacation to Thailand and Cambodia.

All I can say is it was awesome!

Cambodia especially had some amazing sites and the whole "vibe" of Siem Reap was really relaxed and friendly.  I'm not saying that the people of Bangkok weren't friendly, they are very nice there, but it was a little more laid back in Siem Reap.

So dear readers, without further delay, I give you a random assortment of photos from Thailand and Cambodia.  These were all taken with my cell phone and I will be posting high-quality photos from my camera in later blogs.

Walking through the Bangkok airport.

First Subway we had seen in 6 months.

I don't think we ever got fruit that wasn't cut to look pretty.

First Oreos in MONTHS!!

This was a nice, frosty root beer from 7-11.

Again, no root beer in Tajikistan.

Trees: politely doling out oxygen AND electricity...

This was a food market on the edge of the canal.  

It seemed to go on for miles and had everything you could imagine.

Pink eggs - maybe from flamingos? :)

Thought this was cool.  

The footprints are actually in cured cement.

Like I said, everything you could imagine was in this market.

New use for Lava soap...

If you don't know what Lava soap is, you may be too young to be on this blog :)

Floating houses on the river.

Middle of high-rises you can still find some traditional buildings.

We took the trains everywhere in Bangkok.  

What we found refreshing was the fact that people actually waited in a line to

board the trains instead of mobbing it like in Tajikistan.

Took this from the train platform...

First ice cream in 6 months!  I think we gained a couple of pounds from ice cream this trip.

There are a lot of impromptu pop-up sidewalk sales when it gets dark in Bangkok.  

This purse looked a little sad to me.

Superfluous...

Could have just written "for life".

Still trying to figure out what reversible chocolate would taste like.

One of our Tuk-Tuk drivers had his license posted...

This was serious!

What was really disturbing is this (and similar) was posted in every men's room I went into.

Made me always want to do a "package" check on my way out...

In Cambodia, we did the fish pedicure...twice!  

It was kind of weird but nice after you get used to the feeling.

Siem Reap.  Again, this was from my phone so quality is poor.

Soooo, THIS is why we can't have nice things...

Seriously people, these temples have endured thousands of years 

and you're trying to help destroy them so you can get a family photo?

"Don't go chasing waterfalls"... actually, if you don't go to them, they definitely aren't coming to you!

One of the waterfalls at Kbal Spean.

Do Not Entry

Our Christmas "tree" was a rose I won (that story later) and our Cambodian ornament.

Street performers will wander around and do a quick show by the restaurants.

The kid wasn't with this guy, he was just wandering around and

playing on the sidewalk with another smaller kid.

Worker in the field

I enjoyed this sign for some reason.  

Maybe its because everywhere you go there's someone

trying to sell you something.

Found a Tesco (we were familiar with them from our travels to England) and went in for a look around.

In Dushanbe, just trying to FIND  most kitchen utensils is a futile effort.

It was nice to see that there's still countries that have what you want and it's easy to find.

Thailand even has gluten-free stuff...

When we went on our 3-day river trip, it was actually quite cold.

Sleeping in a room that you can see the river through the floorboards was interesting.

This was the view when we got up the first morning for breakfast.

In the Erawan National Park.  

Very beautiful.  There are 7 waterfalls you can hike to and lots of swimming holes.

A couple of pools.

Monk on a rock.

 The hike to the upper 3 waterfalls got fairly intense.

Part of our 3-day trip included elephant rides.

Here's the view from the driver's seat.

Our 3-day trip culminated in a 1-1/2 hour raft float down the river.

Tough life.

These are not short people.

The beam with the "mind your head" sign was at least 7-8 feet off the walkway.

There were many Buddha shrines throughout the country.

This one was a larger one that attracted a lot of people each day.

Al Bundy is alive and well.

We took a train out to the old capital of Ayutthaya.

On the way back, our tickets were "standee" and they meant it! 

The Standee train ride was only 1-1/2 hours so it wasn't bad at all.

We had a great end of our 2013!