credzba Posted February 12, 2009 Report Share Posted February 12, 2009 There are services that do the inspection for you...One trick I saw on Chinese TV was to take a ball bearing and make sure everything slopes the way it should...I guess a level would also come in handy to give you that info...I suspect that once you do sign off...Then it's yours baby...Forget going to court to sue anybody... We paid an inspector in China to look over our apartment. He had a huge level, and a ball bearing on the end of a presentation type collapsible pointer. He found many hollow spots behind the concrete that we had broken open and filled. There were joint in the windows he believed might leak, and we got those fixed. All in all, 200 yuan and we thought he did a good job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogerluli Posted February 15, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2009 I am pretty sure I saw it here on CFL, I just can't seem to find it. The day I saw the photos, I decided to go back and print a few for reference, and I could not relocate the other view. Thanks anyways, I had to give it a shot. Mike Is this it Mike??? http://i43.tinypic.com/343sw83.jpg I would say this is defnitely a Thai style house...probably Phuket... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikepellicore Posted February 15, 2009 Report Share Posted February 15, 2009 Roger, yes that is it! Did you find it here at CFL? I printed 2 copies and scanned it to the computer. Thank you so much! Mike & Yizhen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill and Linda Posted February 15, 2009 Report Share Posted February 15, 2009 We paid an inspector in China to look over our apartment. He had a huge level, and a ball bearing on the end of a presentation type collapsible pointer. He found many hollow spots behind the concrete that we had broken open and filled. There were joint in the windows he believed might leak, and we got those fixed. All in all, 200 yuan and we thought he did a good job.Thanks a lot for all the feedback, I've got a pretty good idea what to look for now. The windows were already on my list, but I hadn't thought about voids in the concrete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carl.hops Posted February 15, 2009 Report Share Posted February 15, 2009 I'll keep all of this in mind when looking at apartments in 4 years, real helpful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogerluli Posted February 15, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2009 Roger, yes that is it! Did you find it here at CFL? I printed 2 copies and scanned it to the computer. Thank you so much! Mike & Yizhen Glad that's the one...I had it in my pics but I still don't know where I got it from...But must be from Thailand... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carl.hops Posted February 21, 2009 Report Share Posted February 21, 2009 Yuxi news: Yesterday a public notice was issued by the Yunnan Provincial Publicity Department's Press and Publication Administration. The injury and subsequent death of the Yuxi city Hongta district Beicheng town young man Li Qiaoming in a detention center has received broad media attention, especially on the Internet. The term 'eluding the cat' has become a hot Internet term in a very short time. In order to satisfy the public's right to know, the Yunnan provincial publicity departhment will form an investigative committee with other relevant departments and proceed to Kunming city Puning town on the morning of February 20 to find out the truth about the incident. We are presently looking for four netizens and other representatives from society to serve as members of the committee. You can register between now and 8:00pm on the evening of February 19, 2009." The notice also included a QQ account number and a telephone phone number. This piece of news was circulated quickly on the Internet. Many netizens cursed that this piece of "fake news" for being so obviously fake. Other netizens actually began to call. "There is no truth that needs to be hidden. We will show by actual action tomorrow that this is now a show." Yunnan provincie publicity department press and publication administration deputy director Gong Fei said that the main reason why netizens were suspicious about the 'eluding the cat' incident was that the information had not been open and transparent in a timely manner. This time, the relevant departments (which includes the Yunnan provincial party public department, the Yunnan provincial public security bureau, the Yunnan Political Legal Committee and the Yunnan provincial procuratorate). Their public invitation for netizens is the first time in the history of the Internet in China. Gong Fei said: "Before the public notice went out, we spent the entire morning convincing the other departments to cooperate with the media interviews. In the past, we did not respect the rules of journalism sufficiently and we did not understand the new media well enough. That was why we had a problem with public opinion. The purpose of this investigation is to show that there are no hidden secrets in this case." This decision had not been easy to make. "We basically discussed this for one whole morning. But in the end, we thought that a news story cannot just be 'blocked.' Besides this closed and opaque approach violated the people's right to know and caused the public to misinterpret the facts." As of the cutoff time of 8:30pm, 510 netizens were able to register successfully. 10 of them (an increase over the originally planned 4 due to the enthusiastic response) will be selected to join the investigative committee to go to the scene of the incident on the morning of February 20. The list of the investigative committee members includes: four government officials (1 from the provincial political legal committee, one from the provincial procuratorate and two from the provincial public security bureau); three media representatives (Xinhua; Yunnan Information Times; Yunnan Net); ten netizens and representatives from society (among the 8 already named, 5 are netizens, one is an insurance salesman, one is a technology worker and another one is a art student). Gong Fei said that the activity on February 20 does not pre-suppose any desired outcome. The investigators will be able to meet with the principals, visit the detention center and interview the key participants and police investigators. "They can deduce the truth of the matter through their own observations." Now no playing with any kittens Rog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waingro Posted April 27, 2009 Report Share Posted April 27, 2009 What a small world...I got married in Yuxi! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogerluli Posted April 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2009 What a small world...I got married in Yuxi! Even smaller...Our other place is in Qionghai, Hainan... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogerluli Posted April 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2009 Well laopo finally did return from the homeland with my first look at our new place in Qionghai, Hainan...This is the one that is the 11th and 12th floors of the building...189 m2 plus a 64 m2 rooftop terrace... Our building at the end of the development...Earlier ones were 7 stories without lifts...(spending too much time on British expat sites) http://i44.tinypic.com/2efud1f.jpg A SW view from the 11th floor living room porch...http://i42.tinypic.com/30kro0k.jpg A NE view from the 12th floor back porch...http://i44.tinypic.com/71gzo6.jpg The Master (12th floor) bedroom cathedral ceiling...http://i39.tinypic.com/eplwz.jpg The terrace looking straight south from the doorway...http://i43.tinypic.com/2laemj7.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogerluli Posted May 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 Pics laopo took at Sanya, Hainan 2 months ago...In 2010 the new high speed rail line will be completed down the east coast of Hainan...In Qionghai we will then be 15 minutes away from Haikou and less than an hour to Sanya... http://i44.tinypic.com/14cxrw6.jpgbusy beach in the morning... http://i43.tinypic.com/v75anp.jpgherself... http://i40.tinypic.com/nl1v1d.jpgfruit sellers... http://i42.tinypic.com/295x2rb.jpgthe guava girl and the watermelon man... http://i43.tinypic.com/2v1kh2d.jpgsunset... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogerluli Posted May 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2009 Pics laopo took in Yuxi, Yunnan 2 months ago... http://i40.tinypic.com/28uqu06.jpgFront of our building...Our apartment is the top left...52 apartments visble here and 2 AC units... http://i44.tinypic.com/2la3qrd.jpgView from the living room windows toward the SE... http://i40.tinypic.com/2vc8b5y.jpgCommon seeing these "bongs" for smoking cigarettes... http://i40.tinypic.com/2v2xld3.jpgA beautiful tea store...Yuxi is a small but rich city owing to the presence of the Hongta Group with the largest cigarette factory in asia... http://i42.tinypic.com/290u49d.jpgDinner...18 RMB...Although the stores and restaurants are universally very nice, prices in Yuxi are low compared to most of China... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogerluli Posted May 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 3, 2009 Well of course the expat needs a place to hang his hat in China. Buying, finishing and furnishing your own space can be loads of fun... "A traditional Chinese building is not constructed of heavily walled rooms like traditional Western buildings. It consists, rather, of heavily timbered sections of framework joined one to another, from which lightly constructed walls are hung." Footnote in "Six Records of a Floating Life" by Shen Fu, 1809... Well amazingly enough even though today's Chinese residential buildings are concrete monoliths the building principles that we think of as post and beam are still used. Here are 2 pics from our Yuxi, Yunnan apartment clearly showing the posts and beams. Other than those structural elements, and the outside walls, you are free to knock down, move and transform your interior space as you wish. Here in the living room view you can see a small wall that projects out about 2' near the front on each side...Those are so gone, all they do is cut down the amount of light and the view from the living room. In the bedrooms we are eliminating one small bedroom and adding it onto the master to give us a larger space, a sitting area in front of a large window and a walk-in closet...About the only interior spaces you can't change very much are bathrooms. They are constructed with a deep pan floor and all the piping stubbed in so everything can be arranged as you wish. It wouldn't be possible to expand that space without taking out part of the ceiling in the floor below you... http://i39.tinypic.com/2gubmup.jpg http://i44.tinypic.com/29kxpuv.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogerluli Posted May 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 4, 2009 (edited) Of course even easier than having walls knocked down AFTER the place is built is to get it all done by the builder to start with...That's just what we were able to do with our new place in Qionghai, Hainan since the building had not even been begun when we bought our apartment... Here is the original plan...http://i39.tinypic.com/2numzkl.jpg Here I had indicated with the "X"s what walls I did not want...It's a win-win for us and the builder by saving them the time and materials to build extra walls and for us to have them torn down later... http://i39.tinypic.com/o6zkmh.jpg And they built it exactly as I wanted...A much better arrangement for the dining room than being crammed in next to the stairway...A huge master upstairs rather than the bedroom we didn't need...Later I'll be blowing out the living room front wall and sliders and doing all windows across the porch to incorporate that space into the living room since we don't need an open porch there with the open terrace upstairs...And also combining the two bathrooms on the lower floor into one and adding a walk-in closet with some of that space...So from a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom we're down to a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom which suits our needs much better... http://i39.tinypic.com/2wedz08.jpg Edited May 4, 2009 by rogerluli (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogerluli Posted May 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 4, 2009 Someone PMed me to ask if by any chance I had noticed the red pipe running along the front of our terrace... Actually I had not only noticed it but also realized it was there on both sunny and cloudy days... http://i40.tinypic.com/4grwx.jpg http://i41.tinypic.com/2qlahy1.jpg And this is a perfect example of the olde adage..."beggars can't be choosers"... You see it's a kind of buy 3 get 1 free deal... When you spring for the 189 m2 house they throw in free of charge the 60+ m2 terrace as a bonus...AND they throw in their water pipe right across the whole shebang...But it really isn't so bad since we need to raise the floor there anyway with some kind of decking so we'll just go over the top of their pipe... PS...Boy you guys really need a few hundred more smilies like we have over next door... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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