When we first arrived in Beijing a few weeks ago, we were taken to our apartment by a member of my school's HR team. She showed us around our tidy new home and showed us how to work the A/C units.
While giving us the tour she mentioned, "Make sure you don't drink the tap water." We were a little taken aback since the apartment building looked fairly new as did the school campus where our apartment was located.
She made it quite clear that it is fine to shower or wash dishes using the tap water, but to boil before drinking or use bottled water.
We didn't want to test the warning and I marched off to the supermarket and bought some bottles of water. For the first few days I would head off to the supermarket a couple of times a day and bring back 4L bottles of water.
Near the end of our first week here in Beijing I found out that almost all of my coworkers have water servers/coolers in their apartments with your standard 18L blue bottles filled with filtered water.
A coworker connected us with a service that supplies the coolers and water bottles and we were all set. It cost 499 RMB ($94.00 CAD) for the cooler and two bottles of water (deposit) and we pay 20 RMB ($3.75) for each bottle of water (refills). It is really convenient and it's great for making tea or instant coffee (when in a pinch).
When you come to Beijing it's worth looking into getting this sort of drinking water set up if one isn't already available in your apartment/house.
The writer:
Kevin O'Shea is an IB/PYP educator at a major international school in Beijing, China. He has lived in South Korea as well as Japan. He is the host of the Just Japan Podcast, an avid nature photographer and nature educator.
Follow him on Twitter (Main account): @jlandkev
Twitter (educator account): @MadForMaple
Bugs of Asia (nature in Japan and Beijing) - FaceBook
While giving us the tour she mentioned, "Make sure you don't drink the tap water." We were a little taken aback since the apartment building looked fairly new as did the school campus where our apartment was located.
She made it quite clear that it is fine to shower or wash dishes using the tap water, but to boil before drinking or use bottled water.
We didn't want to test the warning and I marched off to the supermarket and bought some bottles of water. For the first few days I would head off to the supermarket a couple of times a day and bring back 4L bottles of water.
Near the end of our first week here in Beijing I found out that almost all of my coworkers have water servers/coolers in their apartments with your standard 18L blue bottles filled with filtered water.
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| Our water set up at our apartment in Beijing. With a family I definitely recommend having at least 2 bottles of water. A single person would be fine with one. |
A coworker connected us with a service that supplies the coolers and water bottles and we were all set. It cost 499 RMB ($94.00 CAD) for the cooler and two bottles of water (deposit) and we pay 20 RMB ($3.75) for each bottle of water (refills). It is really convenient and it's great for making tea or instant coffee (when in a pinch).
When you come to Beijing it's worth looking into getting this sort of drinking water set up if one isn't already available in your apartment/house.
The writer:
Kevin O'Shea is an IB/PYP educator at a major international school in Beijing, China. He has lived in South Korea as well as Japan. He is the host of the Just Japan Podcast, an avid nature photographer and nature educator.
Follow him on Twitter (Main account): @jlandkev
Twitter (educator account): @MadForMaple
Bugs of Asia (nature in Japan and Beijing) - FaceBook
It was like that for us when we lived in Turkey, in the 70's. But we were lucky enough to live two blocks away from an artisan well. Did lots of water hauling.😁
ReplyDeleteThe bottled water cost 8 to 10 RMB here in Hangzhou.
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