The Dryer

Well for starters, as I get back into the blogging thing, I'll share a little of what is going on today at our little apartment in big Shanghai. Upon our return from the US on Friday we discovered that our dryer (now situated on our lovely enclosed balcony) had died. Thursday some friends of ours came over (thank you so much ladies!!) and cleaned our apartment for us. They put our sheets in the dryer and the dryer began to make a terrifyingly loud banging and clanking noise. Now our dryer has been on its last legs for awhile, so we weren't surprised. We have it repaired about every 2 months or so. 6 years ago it cost us $120. I think we got our money's worth! 6 years ago, we bought the best available in Chengdu. It was "Little Swan" brand, and really the only one we could find. Dryers are not very common here, and few chinese friends that I know use them. Most of my friends and neighbors hang their clothes, which works, but I've been spoiled by a lifetime of fluffy clothing that is dry in an hour, so I consider a dryer a necessity to our family. Anyway, I don't know how to explain that old dryer. It didn't weigh much...I could lift it up easily. It's capacity was for about 2 towels and 3 of Alex's t-shirts...or about a dozen baby clothes. It also took up to 4 hours to dry a load. So it wasn't very efficient...but it worked, and the clothing eventually came out fluffy!

Now, dryers in China have come a long way. Yesterday Alex went and picked out a new dryer for us. I'm so excited! He purchased one of better quality and larger capacity than our last one. It was delivered at noon today, and at 2:30 a man is coming to install it. I seriously can't wait to try it out. I'm anticipating it will be able to dry a load in an hour! I'll keep you posted. ;)

Here is a current photo of the dryer...waiting to be "installed". I'm not sure what they mean by "installed". I think they are just going to take it out of the box and plug it in.:

And here is the current status of my laundry (Yikes...this method of drying takes all day or more in the winter! Vera also likes to sneak over and grab low-hanging laundry, which adds more time to the drying process!):