It's a Bit Noisy Here

We moved into our new apartment on Sunday.  We were supposed to move in a while ago but first we had to wait for the place to be painted.

The view from the living room is very nice.  Probably the nicest we have ever had.  We are in the business district of Gaoxin.  We also seem to be surrounded by car dealerships.  Here is a picture of the view from our window.

To the left is the park.  Its very long and takes up several city blocks. In total it is 3,600 meters or 3.6 kilometers or about 2.25 miles.  That is where I do most of my runs.  Aside from having to cross the street on each block, it's a very nice park.

Directly across from us is a BMW dealership. Next to that is Mini followed by Volvo, Koros, Nissan and Honda. To the right of all these dealerships are Haima, GMC and Mercedes Benz.   Next to us on the same side as us are at least three more dealerships including Toyota, Hyundai, and some other one I forgot.  Behind us there is Jeep and something else.  Why am I telling you about all the car dealerships that surround us you ask?  Because of this: (It's impossible to see the fire crackers going off in the video because it's so small but it's mainly for the sound ;)

 

I kept hearing that noise when we were in the hotel (with double paned windows) and I could not figure out what it was.  I asked Matt what it was and he said he was told that when one of the car dealerships sells a car they set off fireworks/ firecrackers.  Yesterday, they started going off before 8AM and by 10AM they had already gone off more than a dozen times.  I guess it was a good day to buy a car.  I left to go for a walk and the moment I returned and walked through my front door I was immediately greeted yet again by the same familiar sound.  It continues throughout the day and well into the night.

But that isn't the only sound that's a bit jarring.  The horn honking is really bad and it just goes on and on all day long and well into the night.

 People have no problem leaning on their horns at 2 AM.  We live on the 10th floor and it sounds like it's right outside the window.  It's at it's very worst between the hours of 7-10:30AM and then again between the hours of 3-8 PM but it goes on all day and all night long.  It's just the length of time in-between horn honking bouts.  Generally, it's about every 30 seconds to 1 minute during rush hours and about 1-3 minutes during  the afternoon and about 2-10 minutes after about 9:30 PM.  I sleep with earplugs so I can't really tell you how bad it is during the night but I have been going to sleep around 12-1AM and they are still honking.  (Luckily the bedroom has a bit more insulation than the front room.)  There is weird little room that is basically "outside" right in the living room so even though the windows are closed, you can still hear everything because it's just this thin wood surrounding the "outside room."  Not sure how to describe it so here are some pictures.

 I'm assuming that is the air conditioner.  There are slats, so you can't accidentally fall out but it is basically outside.

This is the wall with the door closed.  The edges don't seal and you can't lock the door.  I found out today that if you leave the laundry room window open, and there is a gust of wind, that this door flies open and you get a regular wind tunnel blowing through the apartment.  Good to know!

I'm hoping that the video works.  I had a really hard time getting it on here and I had to lower the quality considerably.  (Good thing they were mainly for sound effects.) They wouldn't load  directly for some reason so I had to put them on YouTube first.  Since China has apparently banned YouTube (as well as Facebook) I have to go through a VPN account.  It's a bit of a pain.