Thursday, September 17, 2009

Apartments

My apartment here is actually quite a bit nicer than I had expected!  I'd heard stories of many English teachers living in dorm-sized, one-room apartments, but that is definitely not my case.  The first pictures here is my apartment building.  My apartment is on the 3rd floor (the no-elevator situation made it real fun to haul my luggage up 2 flights of stairs after just getting off of a 14 hour flight.... nothing compared to moving that couch into Jennie's new apartment in Madison though!)

In my apartment, I have an entry way, a decent-sized kitchen, a bathroom, a bed/living room, a porch area for laundry, and a spare room with a closet, but nothing else in it.

The entry way consists of a shoe closet and a place to take off your shoes.  In Korea, you ALWAYS take off your shoes when you go into someone's house. (don't tell anyone, but I have walked through my kitchen w/ my shoes on to go shut off my lights or grab something i forgot before leaving for school).

The kitchen is very nice... everything you would expect (see picture 2) except there is no oven.  I also do not have a rice cooker, as I was promised.  Apparently, when our schools were choosing furnishings for our apartments, they had the option of getting us a rice cooker or a toaster.  Mine (and Ben's, unfortunately) chose the toaster, probably b/c they figured it was more "western".... those of you who know me know that I am deeply depressed by this decision :(  To make matters worse.... rice cookers here are EXPENSIVE!!!!  I have not found one for under 5o,ooo Won (around $45 US).... maybe after my first paycheck i'll be able to afford one.

My bathroom is actually fairly normal too!  I have an actual shower!  In most of the apartments here, the bathrooms do not have a space specifically designated as a "shower".  They have a hose attached to the wall, somewhere near the sink, that is supposed to serve as the shower.  There is a drain in the middle of the floor, and you can't leave anything out on your countertops or it will all be soaked after your shower.  I, at least, have a small divider between my toilet/sink area and the "shower area"!

The bed/living room (picture 3) is the main room of the house.  It is pretty big, but all that is in it is a bed and a TV (which, as of now, only has 5 channels- all in Korean.... some great infomercials and korean cooking shows though!)  I like it though, because the big window of the porch is across the back of the room- great for letting in sunlight! ...those of you who know me, know how important that is to me :)

The "porch area" is basically for laundry.  No one has dryers in Korea (I completely expected this.... the U.S. is pretty much the only country who uses them), so there is a washing machine on the porch and a drying rack to dry the clothes after washing.  These "porches" (i put it in quotation marks because it is not actually outside) are very common in Korean apartments.  I like it because it lets in a lot of light!

Finally, I have a spare room in my apartment!!  It has a closet where I keep my clothes (because there is no closet in my living/bed room) and that was it until yesterday, Ben and I found a couch at the dump outside my apartment and brought it up! (yes, all the way to the 3rd floor).  The couch was actually in really decent condition, a few tears on the arms, but that's it!  I am happy for more furniture in my apartment (especially when it is free!).... that is the one thing it is lacking.

All in all, though, it's a really nice place to live.  It's also about a 5-10 minute walk from my school!  Many students actually live in the same apartment complex..... which makes walking to school interesting.  More on that later though!







Ben's Apartment:












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