On Tuesday morning, we packed our belongings--four suitcases, three backpacks, a few bags of food, and a big package of toilet paper--and trekked across the street into our new building. Our previous apartment was...small, so we had no idea what to expect. Well, we were pleasantly surprised!
Our kitchen is typical Korean, with a small sink, a two-burner electric stovetop, a refrigerator, and a small washer where an oven belongs. I'm still a bit bitter about the oven situation, as Koreans just don't bake like we do. However, Ben said that we can get a toaster oven, which has since made our kitchen complete.
In addition to living without ovens, Koreans also live without clothes dryers. We survived our first load of laundry in our 'old' apartment, finding every possible hook to hang the wet clothes on. When we moved into our new place, we were delighted to discover that our washer also DRYS the clothes! We've never seen such a thing, but it is such a relief and an added convenience that we were not expecting. The machine itself doesn't hold much, and it takes about 3.5-4 hours to do a load from start to finish, but wow, we can do laundry!
The main room of our apartment is quite roomy. Up until tonight, we didn't have a single piece of furniture in it. Today, we purchased some 'stools' (they are perfect for a freshman girls' dorm room) and a few seat pads (think of the mats that you see on the floor of a Japanese teppan restaurant) so now we can have friends over and be more comfortable. The advantage of the floor seating mats is that the main source of heat in Korean homes is through the floor. It is getting colder each day, so we'll probably get a small space heater for our bedroom area, which has no heat because it is a loft.
The loft is quite cozy, and by cozy we mean four and a half feet tall. When standing on the second-to-last step, Jen's head just grazes the ceiling. The final step means walking like the hunchback. For Ben, well, yeah, he has to duck. Our bed consists of two twin mattresses on the floor, which you can see fit just right in the loft. We still don't have curtains yet, so we wake up to a nice view of the building across the street. At night, the lights from the street are similar to that red sign from that Seinfeld episode that kept them from sleeping. Thankfully, we are so tired at the end of the day, it is easy to find rest. It is a comfortable room, and we are so glad to have some sort of separation from the main room. In our old apartment, if anyone wanted to come over, they would have had to sit on our mattresses.
It is Korean tradition NOT to clean your apartment when you move out. Granted, there's not many rules in the States about leaving your place spotless, but there is such a thing as apartment maintenance, who will clean the apartment, re-paint, etc. Not so in Korea. That same tradition also holds that when you move into the apartment, it looks like it did when the previous tenants moved out. A bit...different for us, especially when it came to cleaning the bathroom. Of course, cleaning any bathroom, including your own, can be a chore. But, cleaning your bathroom and finding long, dark Asian hair everywhere is just...gross. It was a challenge. Today's adventure is cleaning out the refrigerator, which smells like old Korean food.
Despite Korean tradition, we have felt very comfortable and at home at our new place. We praise God for an apartment that is big enough to have people over, which is what we love to do. Jen's excited to learn how to cook some things the Korean way, and we already have plans to teach the guys we work with how to play Euchre. Now, if I can only convince Ben that we need a small Christmas tree next week...'tis the Season!
4 comments:
Cute apartment! I love to check your blog....thanks for the updates!
Ben and Jen, love that apartment. I especially love that even I would feel tall walking around your loft. Has Ben found a gym yet? Don't forget your calculator when you go, lest you lift a whole lot more than you intend (or believe possible!).
Jason
So...very startled by some of the cultural things that don't carry over. They don't clean their apartment when they move out? You found someone else's hair in the bathroom? And....I'm assuming it was bathroom hair, too. That's just plain disturbing. I'm sorry, but you can't have a somewhat "Westernized" culture and not take the cleaning rules with you. That's like having your cake and eating it, too!
Do they flush after they defecate? I mean, we can't expect people to clean up after themselves after they finish up their "stay" and then "move out" of the bathroom, right? Geesh. Some things should just be culturally standard.
In other news, I really like your apartment. Apart from the midget ceilings in the loft, it's really cool that you have a loft. And that living room does look pretty spacious!
I'm just catchin' up, here, Jen! I'm so excited to keep going and see more pictures! I love the journalistic style with the pictures beside what you're writing about. And, aside from the no oven and having to clean it yourself, I really think the apartment's pretty cool, too. It looks very modern to me, but maybe they've just been living 'minimally' for awhile now. Last weekend, Jesse and Brent put in a new kitchen floor (yay, no more carpet in the kitchen!) which required us to move the kitchen table into our living room...you've been here so you can imagine...but I've enjoyed having the big window to look out when we eat or the not-as-wholesome alternative: veggie tales and wiggles videos on youtube for Anderson to watch during snacks, etc. So, just relating to the living in one room thing. I do think its comforting that your bedroom is its own little haven. We try to keep ours like that, too, with no distractions. I was wondering if its common to just eat holding your plate/bowl of food and sitting on the floor cushions? Because I love the sparse look, though you wouldn't know that by our home.
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