I have to say, I'm a little in love with my Korean apartment.
Granted, as a permanent living solution there might be a few tweaks I would make. But for the next year, I think it will do nicely!
When it was all said and done, the move into my new apartment was completed in a little under an hour. If I had to guess, I would say the Director was paying the moving man by the hour, as nothing else seems to explain the frantic pace at which all of my things were moved out of my quarantine apartment and rushed to the new location. Carrying everything up three flights of stairs was practically an Olympic event.
Turns out that most of the items in the quarantine apartment would be coming with me to my new place. That included any food or drink, the microwave, the bed and all the bedding, and the drying rack from the laundry room. The director also added a table, two chairs, and a bed frame. (Although the bed frame is really just a wooden shell that wraps around two plastic pallets that actually support the bed.)
I am on the third floor of this very lovely apartment building. The window is located in my "laundry room," which you guys will see in a minute.
This is the front door, which is accessed by the small key pad to the right. What blows my mind is the mailbox. See the strip of black all the way on the right side of the door? Those are open slots where mail is slid through. On the other side, there are just open bins for each apartment. In Korea, people don't mess with your packages or mail. They are simply good neighbors.
The whole thing makes me suspicious....
The room itself is set up in a pretty typical style for Korean apartments. There is a main room which has the bed, and it is separated from the laundry room and the kitchen/bathroom by two separate sliding doors. For heating and cooling purposes, only the main room is affected. There is floor heating for the winter and an A/C unit for the summer. At night, I slide all the doors closed so that I can keep costs low. It is a little uncomfortable in the morning since the bathroom and kitchen get a little warm and muggy overnight, but once I open the sliding door between them they cool off relatively quick.
So, like most Korean apartments, there is an small inset area right inside the front door. Shoes are not to be worn inside the apartment. The cabinet to the left of the door is where shoes are stored. When guests come over, they leave their shoes in the little entrance area and are either in their socks or barefoot in your apartment. If you have insecurities about your bare feet better get used to bringing a spare pair of socks with you wherever you go. A lot of Koreans will have "guest slippers" that visitors can wear around inside.
The kitchen is small, but other than lacking an oven, it is quite sufficient for one person. At least a person who doesn't cook very often...which I don't.
The bathroom is much the same as my quarantine apartment, but with a nice pop of yellow tile which, despite the bright color, I actually don't mind.
The room was empty except for my bed and table from quarantine. The bed is a little strange. It's sort of like a box spring and a regular mattress all in one.
There was no place to put my clothes, so I had to buy a few pieces for clothes storage. I will post the after pictures below. I don't want to spend too much furnishing the room since I will probably only be here for a year, but I also want it to feel a little bit like home.
The laundry room comes with a good sized washer and a drying rack which is suspended from the ceiling. I have a really good view outside of the laundry room window, but it's so hot here that I haven't opened the windows much. I can't wait for the cooler fall weather when I can have the view and the breeze.
If anyone was ever so inclined as to send anything all the way to Daegu, South Korea, I would gladly take pictures to tape to the wall! I have quite a bit of blank, white wall space.
The front door has an electronic code and a doorbell. I don't have to worry about carrying or losing any keys, which is great!
The one thing I am still trying to figure out is the trash. Apparently, our landlord is picky about trash and recycling all being sorted out appropriately. Now, I am all for the separation of trach and recycling, but the restrictions apply more heavily to the foreigners in the building. She doesn't have the same problems with the Korean residents not sorting everything out. The thing I am still trying to figure out is where to store all of the bins for the various trash and recycling sorting. As you can see in the photos, there isn't a lot of storage in the kitchen, so right now I just have bags of recycling and trash just sitting around on the floor. The visual clutter is driving me crazy, so I'm going to have to figure out something soon.
Here are some photos of the apartment after a week.
Now that all of my clothes are out of suitcases and put away, I actually have a little bit a extra room in the apartment. I thought about getting some sort of bean bag chair to sit on, but again, we are back to the dilemma of how much money I want to spend on furnishings. I am also considering getting a mattress topper since the mattress is quite hard. But can I get used to it and save the money?
Decisions. Decisions.
My next post will be all about Daegu! I can't wait to share it with you!
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