Home Sweet Home part 3

After being in our apartment for a little over a week, it is really starting to feel like home.  We've made a few purchases to add comfort and personal touch, further making it feel like our own place.  Going from living in a "developed" country to a "developing" country takes some adjusting, given that many of the modern convenience associated with living are just not available.  However, I am enjoying the transition and at times even finding it entertaining.  It's actually not as difficult as I originally thought it would be and everyone that I have encountered seems happy and willing to help answer my questions and point me in the right direction.  

Here's some pictures of our apartment, enjoy!

Laundry Room

We have two bathrooms in our apartment and the washing machine is in one of them, so we've pretty much turned it into a laundry room.

I was very appreciative that the directions were in both Khmer and English.  Note the "Air Dry" options #5 & 6.  This is as close to a dryer as we will get here in Cambodia.  It just an extra long spin cycle.  Most people hang their laundry up to air dry and several balconies in our building are filled with large drying racks.

We bought this drying rack to hang in the bathroom/laundry room and it seems to work quite well.  This is a shower curtain rod, but we have yet to see a shower curtain for sale...hmmmm.

Here's the rack full of clothes.  I was surprised at how much clothing I was able to hang up in a small space.

However, at times we have to resort to hanging larger pieces like towels and t-shirts on the backs of chairs in the living room.  The fan works great to help dry the clothes faster.  :)

Laundry detergent and fabric softener.  After we did our first load of laundry, our clothes were really stiff and  we would need to add extra fabric softener.  We triple the amount suggested and found that keeps our clothes nice and soft.  :)

Kitchen
Our kitchen stove is three burners and no oven.  There is also no microwave or convection oven.  As someone who loves to bake, this will be an adjustment.

The other day, I wanted to reheat some leftover pizza we had delivered the previous evening.  Since we don't have a microwave (yet), my only option was to use the stove.  This turned into quite an ordeal and I missed using a microwave and having my pizza ready in 15 seconds.  In order to heat up my pizza, I took the following steps -
Step 1: turn on the propane tank

Step 2: turn on the burner

Step 3: heat up the wok...that's right, a WOK!  I didn't have a frying pan and it was either use the wok or the large stew pot sitting on the left burner.  The upside to using the wok is that it heats up very quickly and was ready in about 30 seconds.

Step 4: put pizza in wok and heat up.  Although I started with the pizza in the center of the wok, I quickly moved the slices to the edge for more indirect heating to keep the crust from getting burnt.

Leaving dishes sit in the sink is just not an option here in Cambodia.  Bugs and little lizards quickly find their way to the bits of food and liquid left behind on the dishes.  One morning, I found a baby gecko inside one of the glasses we used for drinking juice the night before.
Dish soap - I have no clue what the names of these dish soaps are but they have pictures of sparkling clean dishes on them, so I figured they were dish soap.

Here's a picture of our main living area.  The living room, kitchen, dining area is one big room with these two huge doors at the end of the room.  There is a balcony on the other side of the doors that looks at the apartment's pool and exercise room.

This is the view from our balcony.  Unfortunately it has been quite hot and very rainy and we haven't had much time to enjoy sitting outside.

Here's a view of the main living space from the opposite end of the room.  As you can see, the windows on the two doors provide plenty of light for the entire area.

Living Room 
Our apartment came furnished with plenty of furniture for the living room, kitchen, dining area, and two bedrooms.  The living room has a couch, four chairs and a coffee table.  The furniture is beautiful, hand-carved wood with a dark stain finish.  However, they are not very comfortable and we quickly realized we would need to find cushions and pillows for them.

We found a small shop near "Old Market" that sold pillows and cushions for our furniture.  We were able to get cushions and pillows that coordinate with each other and are interchangeable.  The store is owned and run by two Cambodia women who helped us find all the cushions so that they would match.  They were simply delightful and eager to help.  When we first left the store, we only had four of the five cushions.  However, when we walked by their store later in the day, they noticed us and told us they found another cushion that matched the rest, so we bought it as well.

Option #1

Option #2

Option #3 - this is the one that we settled on...for now.

Here's one of the four chairs that matches the couch.  The cushions for the couch also fit the chairs, which will be nice if we want to rearrange them.

Bedroom
Our place has two bedrooms, so family and friends are welcome to stay and visit anytime (hint, hint).  Here's the furniture and comforter that came with the apartment.  We did purchase a mattress topper for our bed because the bed are extremely firm.

We purchased this bedspread at "Old Market" with two pillow shams.  It helps add some color to the room.  We're still on the hunt for a runner to go across the bedspread to break up the pattern a bit.  We also want a couple more small pillows but have yet to find ones that will compliment this design.

 A close up of the pattern on the bedspread.  Dark green and gold, not something I would probably think of getting back home but found this design simply beautiful.  The pictures don't do it justice.

This is my closet/dresser.  The luggage and bag in the bottom of my closet serve as my dresser and store all my clothes that can really go on hangers.  The three drawers at the very bottom store my shoes.  

Bathroom
The bathrooms here are quite different from the ones we are used to in the States.  For starters, there is no shower curtain to separate the shower from the rest of the bathroom.  The tiled floor has a slight slope so the water runs to the drain in the corner.  We bought a little plastic shelf (seen here in the lower right corner) for our showering items along with a larger enclosed storage container for all the items we want to keep dry.  Any electric objects are stored in our bedroom.  

The toilet is located right next to the shower and has a spray hose attached to it.  I'm not quite sure if this is some form of a bidet or what but I have used the hose once to spray at a cockroach I saw one night walking across the bathroom tile.  LOL

After showering, there is water all over the floor.  My husband suggested we get a squeegee to get rid of the water after we shower.  Brilliant idea!

One of the things that I was surprised I would miss is the use of my iPhone.  In Cambodia, it serves as my alarm clock...and that's it!  The phone on the right is what I use to make calls and text.

I bought this t-shirt as an art shop near "Old Market".  As a huge fan of The Wizard of Oz, I could not resist this purchase.  For those of you not familiar with transportation options in Cambodia, "tuk-tuk" (basically a rickshaw pulled by a motorcycle) is the most common way to get around town.