Hot Electricity

This is a flash shot in almost total darknesss. They got to the problem very qickly.

In the apartment until almost midnight.

Working on one of the AC units.

Well as you may know the electricity over here is hot. Everything is pretty much 220. That means appliances run faster, toasters heat quicker, microwaves even cheap ones are quick, even batteries seem to charge up much faster.

Well last Monday is when this took place. Well it has taken a week to recover and get this post up, we had a electrical incident in our apartment. As I was sitting and working on the computer, the lights flickered. Well that is not a uncommon experience so I did not think much about it. The next think I know the lights and AC and everything is off, then on, then dim, then super bright. I jump up and go to the electric panel and start switching things off. As I look around I can see that some things are smoking and very hot. Well long story short, I know not really short but, it took the guards, a repair man and then a bunch of repairman over the next few day to get things repaired. AC was out for three days but lights worked. We stayed in a hotel for one night to get some much needed sleep. Well after a week and many repair guys, lots of coordination and new purchases, we now have AC, all other appliances work or we have had to purchase new. Anything that was plugged in like small transformers burned out as well as any electronic stuff. My laptop survived but the power supply did not! What fun, not really.

Oh, the collective wisdom on what happened was that one of our AC units, we have three, shorted and caused a spike on the line which burned out some pretty thick ground wires in the electrical box. Why did the circut breakers not cut the power. They seem to be more like switches then actual breakers. We have no insurance to cover such occurances nor is it even available, and no, the landlord bears no legal responsibility!

Staff Apartment

Click on any picture to see a slightly larger version.Front door to the building

Large Living Room

Dining Room and Kali

Kitchen

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

Kali's Room

Main Bathroom

Molly in Molly's Room

Beautiful Chinese piece purchased in ZhuHai a nearby town

Mr. Brantley, our School director, asked me to post another set of pictures of a different apartment that is occupied by our QSI staff members. Many of the staff coming to QSI this Fall are looking at this blog and our wondering about the provided housing. The Wood's were gracious enough to let me take pictures today of their apartment. Darcy and Eric have two girls Molly in the 8yr old class and Kati who is a Secondary 1 student. They live just one block from the school on the sixth floor of this building. The 3 bedroom apartment has views in two directions and is about 1600 sq ft. These apartments do not have a outside balcony but do have roof access as well as a building elevator. Most of the furniture except the Chinese piece is either the schools or came with the furnished apartment. They also have a spot with a washer and dryer, I did not get a picture of it. They have quite a lot of built-in cabinets for storage.

If you missed it, our apartment is at the other end of the general area that most all the staff lives in Shekou. You can see our apartment on this blog. The posting is in the archive and is dated 11/05/07.