Living in Korea – the first week

Greetings!

I'm living in an Officetel in Anseong, South Korea – see wikipedia's entry for Anseong if you're interested. As it was explained to me, an Officetel is a combination office / hotel, and what immediately popped into my head was a suite in some fancy hotel that I could use for an office by day and entertaining business guests in the evening. Boy was I wrong - this is neither an office nor a hotel. Think “Student studio apartment on a budget” and you'd be right on the mark. Now don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful for where I'm staying and I'd rather have my own studio apartment and not worry about leaving my socks on the floor for housekeeping to discover. It has everything I could want for the three months that I'll be here.

I've got a single bed to rest my head after a long day. The mattress is firm, the pillow is big, and I haven't had a bad nights sleep yet. I'm getting used to using a quilt covering the mattress and sleeping under a light blanket. Things are different here, they don't use bedsheets.

I've got a bathroom. It has a toilet, a place to hang the TP, a sink, a mirror, and a place for my toothbrush. It also has a hand shower attached to the faucet, and with the turn of a knob, the room zooms from a loo to a spacious shower. The entire room is sunken about an inch, sorry, 25mm from the living area and there's a drain in the floor, and as long as I'm careful not to shower the TP or my towel, life is wonderful. It's really easy to keep clean, too, I just hose down the whole room every morning when I'm done showering!

I've got a kitchen. Okay, a kitchenette. Actually, a galley would be more accurate. It has a nifty glass-top electric hotplate, an RV size fridge, and enough cabinet space to store cookware and service for the entire US pacific naval fleet. The sink, er, basin is almost large enough to bathe in, it probably takes up 40% of the counter space.

Under the counter is a washing machine, and after my co-worker translated the instructions for me it works just fine. I was reading the instruction book for this silly thing, actually I was looking at the pictures in the manual, and I mostly understood the gist of the icons: don't stack things on top, don't wash your sneekers, and my favorite, don't wash the cat. I mentioned this to my co-worker and he said it's an old Korean joke that if some American washes their cat then the manufacturer gets sued, so they print the warning.

Off the galley is a utility closet, very handy for storing my luggage, and it houses the boiler and A/C unit. On my first morning in Korea it took me a while to figure out how to get hot water – the boiler is controlled by a thermostat next to the front door and it only heats water for a while after pushing the 'on' button. It takes about five minutes to get scalding hot water, and I'm sure it saves a bunch of energy by not keeping water hot when it's not needed.

I don't know how the place is heated, but every day when I get home it's warm. I think it's radiant heat through the floor since I feel warm spots here and there, but I don't know how to turn it up or down. It's comfortable, so it's something I don't worry about.

My apartment is on the fourth floor but you won't find it by looking at the buttons in the elevator which are marked (1) (2) (3) (F) (5) (6). I'm told it's bad luck to have a fourth floor, since 'four' in Korean sounds like the word for 'death'.

I don't worry about getting out in case of fire, since I've got the Simple Descending Life Line to save me! I won't explain, see the picture... It's tempting try it but I'm not brave enough to jump out of a perfectly good apartment. Yet.

That's my apartment in Anseong. If I ever figure out what my address is, I'll email it to my family and friends to send care packages. (hint: great bear, jitter critter, peets...) Next blog: life in Anseong outside the apartment. Shopping is.... surreal.

Jerry.