Home Sweet Shimao

I know I have made an entry about what our apartment looks like, but I wanted to add to it. Our building is 1 of 8 (building 4 was not built for superstitious reasons). We live in building 6. The entire Shimao Rivera Garden area takes up 2 city blocks. This turns out to be about 4 blocks long and 2 blocks wide by Minnesota standards. The entire area is enclosed to provide you with a sense of calm in a very busy city. We often walk inside the complex to avoid streets filled with shops, food (on the ground), hair (they have barbers on the street), tons of people, garbage (you don’t want to know), and water whose contents could require (in our eyes) a hazmat team.

In addition to the 7 buildings there are 2 large gyms, one of which has an outdoor beach pool. Next to the other gym is a large outdoor pool, which despite common knowledge is not used for swimming. There are 2 tennis courts and one very expensive restaurant. There are also several areas that have stone, metal, water, or plant sculptures. Just out our window are 2 hedge mazes. One for the kids with plants only 3 feet high and one for the adults with plants 8 feet high. There is also an open area where we watched the Mooncake Festival. As a whole it has been a very pleasant place to live.