Apartment Tour

As part of our contract we have been provided with an apartment for our year in Buan.

Here's a 'tour' I made. Please excuse Tom's butt.

When we first saw the apartment we were pretty disappointed. The couples apartments I've seen online are huge, with spare bedrooms and offices and ample space.  I had grand plans for a chocolate room or a fart room, but they were dashed (I think Tom is secretly pleased.) We were told there was another apartment we could look at in Gimje, a larger city which is a 20 minute busride from Buan. The other apartment was a 3rd floor studio, above a restaurant, literally on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere. No Gimje in sight. Although we were clear when we applied that we wanted to live together, the original plan would have Tom in Buan, me in Gimje. It is small but it's bigger than Tom's room in NZ and it's got air conditioning, hallelujah!

Here's a few more shots of the apartment:

Our apartment building. We're on the third floor to the right of the stairwell. The room at the top is full of chillies which are being dried to make kimchi, and the roof is awesome. I wish I had a barbecue and some deck chairs so I could live up there.

The building is owned by the Buan Office of Education so most of the other residents are teachers.

The office area/dining room, and the bathroom to the right. The bathroom walls are falling apart, the previous tenant had zero luck getting them fixed.

Shower/tap contraption. There's a knob attached to the tap, and you twist it to switch between the shower and the sink. It's a pain in the ass. I've been in the apartment just under two weeks and I've been drenched about 5 times.

I keep Tom in his place. I'm too short to reach the top cupboards so I don't know how Koreans would cope! I'm short in New Zealand, but here I'm a few inches taller than most of the women I've met (and they all wear high heels!)

The bedroom/lounge/office.

A note on Korean furniture - we had to buy this double bed when we arrived (350,000 KRW/$420 NZD) and it's rock hard. All of the beds are. It is traditional for Koreans to sleep on a 'yo,' a mat on the floor which is rolled up during the day, so the beds must seem soft in comparison.

This is our drying room and supersonic 10kg washing machine. So far we've just been pushing random buttons to get it to work, it's Russian Roulette laundry.

Our couch. Like the bed, this couch is rock hard and stupidly uncomfortable. Above Tom's head is the panel which controls the floor temperature and the hot water - another post about heating in Korea to come.

Also, as I wrote this I was told we'll be moving to a 3 bedroom apartment early next week. I can have a fart room AND a chocolate room!

Anna