Since I moved to Ansan I have neglected to post any pictures of my apartment or much about anything at all really! Today I decided to take pictures of my apartment and outside of my apartment.
When you walk into my apartment this is what you will see.
Don't get jealous...this is my stove. Once I left the gas a little bit on in my apartment for 14 hours. I woke up with a headache, aired out my apartment and have only used my stove like twice since then. That'll teach me to try to be Betty Crocker!
This is my the little room with my washing machine and also where I house a lot of my shoes in their off time.
This is the spider that lives in the room with my washer and shoes. He's been with me for nearly three weeks now. When I first saw him, my instinct was to squash him. Then I thought of all the gnats that try to plague my apartment and I decided to keep him! Last week there was a little green worm living in my broccoli so I decided to feed him to my spider. He's now twice the size of when I first met him!!!
This is the view from the room where my spider is! My little kitchen area.
This is my room from the kitchen area.
You Are Here. This is above my kitchen table and where I keep pictures up of all my friends and family.
My bed from the door. There is one awkwardly placed mirror above my bed. It is one in a group of four that has somehow managed to stay attached to the wall while the others have fallen long ago.
My bathroom! Nothing special? Well if you're an English teacher in Korea you would see the beauty in this bathroom. I have a shower area, where most only have a shower head connected to their sink and have to shower over their toilets! Not me! :)
The other room. It's not big enough to be a bed room and there is only one of me so I use it as my closet! And it's a nice place to store random other things!
This is the view from the window above my kitchen sink.
My bike! It sleeps in the stairs beneath my apartment.
This is my door from the outside. It almost always has a flyer or advertisement stuck to it.
When I walk out my door this is what I see!
I bought these wall sticker and put them on the wall above my computer. All the white in my apartment was driving me crazy and I thought it was a cute addition.
My desk in my bedroom. Also note the air conditioner above my desk...It's the only one for my entire apartment.
Drying room and GIANT window in my room. It's a good sized room but I can't stand all the light coming into my apartment at night so I usually wear a sleeping mask to sleep.
This is the entrance into my apartment. My apartment is on the left.
This is the outside of the big window in my bedroom. It helps my rooms stay nice and cool.
When I walk out of my apartment I usually turn left and this is what I see. Notice the lovely hill in the far background.
If I go to the end of my street and turn right, this is the view and also the way I walk to school everyday.
Turn to the left and you'll see this lovely sight! :)
Walking out of my apartment and taking a right will lead you to these bike racks and just beyond that is a kimbap place. Location, location, location!
If you look to the left of the bike racks there is this nice rest area that usually has a few people enjoying the shade and talking. There was a group of ajumas hanging out there today on some of the benches.
Mailboxes. They're usually packed with advertisements and flyers so I have to sift through the papers to get my bills.
My apartment building. They're five stories high and I can hear everyone as the come into the building and leave. Especially in the mornings! Koreans have a habit of slamming doors.
That's my apartment inside and out! There are a few small things that I haven't really thought about in a long time, but I realize they could be of some interest. As you could see from the pictures above, the air conditioner is near the ceiling in the corner of the room. That's because it's operated by remote control as are most Air Conditioners in Korea.
This is my Air Con remote. Also recognize that I am getting used to the metric system. What do those buttons do? I couldn't tell you. Orange = on/off and the arrow make the temperature go up and down.
During the winter my floors are heated throughout the apartment via a boiler system. This is the dial that controls the heat in my apartment and is also how I turn on the hot water to take a shower. To turn on only the water you have to hit the bottom button to makes sure that it only heats the water and not the floor too. Yes, I have had accidents of turning it on and then an hour or so realizing that my floor is nice and cozy warm in the middle of summer :/
And below you will see my phone. Yes, my cellular device. It is a valuable companion with the built in dictionary in which I can translate Korean words to English and English words to Korean which has helped smooth communication in several instances. I have also attached my T-Money which I put money on and then scan as I go through the turnstiles at the metro station, get on a bus or even when taking a taxi. I actually saw a vending machine the other day that accepts T-Money. Anyway, my phone is through LG Telecom's Oz branch. The service is always good and I actually dropped this phone in the ocean and it never even went off. AMAZING! The marketing for OZ is "We live in Oz". When Scott and I first got our phones we kept singing the song from the commercial.
This is just a little of my daily life in Korea, even the simple task of turning on the air-con can turn into a chore when you have to decipher ever button! For me, this is nothing to complain about. I came to Korea with intentions of knowing nothing of the country, language and very little about the culture. Now I feel like a pro! When I walk up to an ATM to make a withdrawal or a deposit sometimes the ATM will not have an English option. SO I chose the button in the place that the withdrawal or deposit generally are and if it doesn't work out I have to start over and try again. At home I would be embarrassed of my ignorance. I would picture myself standing at the ATM and everyone around me looking at me and thinking, "What an idiot!". The embarrassment would be so much that I would literally NOT go to the ATM if it meant that I would look stupid.
How about paying bills? Not as easy as it sounds. I went to the bank to pay my bills (you have to go to your bank and use a bill pay machine or pay online- my check card and lack of Korean prohibits me from that). While attempting to pay my bills I had to push the button and put the receipts in the machine over five time! The bank was full of people but no one was in line behind me so I continued on pushing a new button, trying this one instead of that one.
Eventually I worked it all out, except for one bill. Apparently the management fees for my apartment, my water and my gas all come on one bill through my apartment complex. I was behind on the bill by three months and they had given me a letter saying they were going to cut me off if I didn't pay within the week. After successfully paying three other bills I was a little confused about this one. The machine wasn't accepting it and it doesn't look like a regular bill. I asked the teller to help me and she was speaking to me in Korean and in less than a minute she was frustrated with me and sent me to the tellers who are responsible for international transfers and usually speak some English. I took a number -43. Look up, the number on the board - 32. UGH! I only had a limited amount of time because the bank is only open from 9-4pm and those are my working hours!!!
I sat down and looked at my bill. I was trying to figure out what she was talking about and within five minutes of waiting I figured it out!!! I'm supposed to transfer the money to a certain account depending on which apartment I live in. DUH! Apparently the managing company has a few complexes. I looked at my other bills that had my address to figure out which bank to transfer and I was out of there!
This is the troubling bill...easy right?
Here is where I was supposed to decide which bank to transfer to by area...
Although figuring it out for myself was more rewarding, I can't help but to think of the teller. It would have taken her maybe five minutes to walk around the counter to the ATM and physically show me that you have to transfer money by ATM. A lot of communication can be accomplished by body language. Instead she brushed me off and expected me to wait for what I was assuming would be about an hour. More than a million times since I've lived in Korea I have been that invalid standing there while a courteous Korean person helps me with whatever small task I'm trying to accomplish.
It's times like these that I think about living in Oklahoma and how many times I had interactions with foreigners who spoke very little English. I'm now standing in their shoes and I hope that when I get home I will be able to help them in some small way like so many Korean people have helped me in the past and will probably help me in the future.
Upon arrival in Korea I was constantly aware of all of my surroundings. I noticed every sign, every hill, every valley, every odd thing I saw was of great interest to me. I feel like I've become a gnarled veteran of Korea. Nothing surprises me and it's rare that I am excited by the beautiful landscape -which is a tragedy. Traveling this past weekend (to Mudfest, I'll blog about later) we were on the bus and at any given glance out the window you could behold a breathtaking view of hills and rice patties. The spring and summer landscapes in Korea are outstanding! Driving through the country side we were able to see a lot of Korea's natural beauty and it made me realize how much I love the hills/mountains. They are not something I've always had but they're something I will miss terribly when I go back to Oklahoma.
This is what I am currently used to seeing while traveling through Korea...
This is what I remember Oklahoma looking like, beautiful but unmercifully flat...
I do miss the sunsets and sunrises in Oklahoma. Korea can seem like buildings upon buildings upon buildings with no horizon in the distance and a good sunset is hard to come by unless you are on the beach.
Throughout my time in Korea I've learned an abundance about myself and have become fearlessly independent in ways I never thought possible. I'm able to see myself more clearly and have actually found solace in solitude and even in being constantly stared at. I have become comfortable in my own skin. I have met a wealth of people from diverse backgrounds and countries. I have been discriminated against, I have been championed for my uniqueness, I have been on a emotional roller coaster and I have found more peace in my heart than I have ever had in my life.
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.- Mark Twain"
