A Place to Call Home

Starting last Tuesday, our rental realtor, Linda (is that your real name?) drove us all around town to look at different homes and apartments. One of the perks and reasons for taking this job in SoKo is that our housing is paid for. We are allotted a certain amount each year and we either use it or lose it, so we might as well get the best place we can for the money we have. Linda very kindly showed us about 9 or 10 different places.
Before arriving here, we assumed we would want to live in an apartment tower. That's what we had in Alexandria and it was great. We had a front desk person 24/7, a pool, a gym and a media room. We figured it would be nice to have some extra amenities like that and be able to talk with someone in the lobby if we had questions. And also proximity to stuff we could walk to. It quickly became evident, however, that that's not how apartment towers are here, or at least the ones we saw. There are no lobbies for one thing. Just an elevator up to  your floor shared with one other unit. One thing we noticed is that common areas are not heated. This is something I took for granted in the States - as soon as you walk into a building, its warm. But here, the entries and elevators are just as cold as outside. Its understandably a waste of energy to heat a space that no one lives in, but it did make the buildings feel a bit more austere. Bbbbbut...as soon as we walked inside we were amazed! The apartments we saw were HUGE. We're used to a little two-bedroom apartment and being able to see everything while standing in one place. But when we walked in, one huge space would open into another huge space and it just kept going! There were so many rooms and the kitchens were enormous! I'm used to about 3-square feet of counter space so my jaw was mostly on the floor. Everything was super high-tech, too. The front doors were like vault doors in a bank and opened with a code instead of a key. The lights and temperature are controlled by a computer screen on the wall. At one point Toby had to go to the bathroom and I had to guess how to flush the toilet! There was a remote control (wish I took a picture) with several buttons, all in Korean. I later found out that it also has a built-in bidet. The tubs, showers, closets, floors, and super modern kitchens - everything - was very nice. 

We also noticed some characteristics that we're not used to. In Korean homes everyone immediately takes their shoes off upon entering, which is a great habit. So the entry way is a little lower than the rest of the floor, presumably to keep dirt by the door. There is about a 2 inch step up to the main floor. Then it goes down again into a bedroom. The threshold into the laundry room goes up 4 inches and back down. Basically there were tripping hazards (and vacuuming nightmares) all over the place. One apartment had a raised platform where families can sit around a low table for tea or dinner. It was a great jumping-off platform for the boys, but otherwise I'm not sure how we would use it. In a couple of the apartments, there was a second stove in an enclosed patio for cooking "stinky things". Linda, who told us that Jonah means "phone" in Korean, also told us that Koreans like a home to be pre-decorated because its considered more deluxe. When I say pre-decorated, I mean pre-deck-o-ray-ted. Think Mr. Miyagi's Dojo meets Marie Antoinette meets The Jetsons. Once we got over the excitement about the size of these places, we started to picture ourselves actually living in them. I'm no interior designer, but I'm pretty sure our Ikea furniture and colorful abstract paintings would look horrific against burgundy and gold floral wallpaper. Am I right? These places were over the top (again, really wish I took more pictures) with huge, billowing draperies over every window, ornate chandeliers, gold stenciling and busy floral wallpaper. Its wallpaper, wallpaper, wallpaper on every single wall and flowers, flowers, flowers all over the place. 
Just a little side note -- I was changing Jonah's diaper in a restroom and noticed a little trashcan with a, guess what, floral design. It said, When you are in love, you love the flower. Hmm. If you say so.

AnyWHO, all the wallpaper means we wouldn't be able to hang our paintings without paying a fee to re-wallpaper the whole place. If they would just use paint it would be so much easier! My style can be summed up like this: plain, simple and neutral with a few pops of color. I don't like busy. I don't like patterns (usually). And I really don't like thick, heavy drapes. As much a we liked the apartments we just couldn't see ourselves feeling at home in them. They felt too much like hotel rooms.

Slippers provided for walking around the home.

Blue lights down a hallway of sliding rice paper doors.

I'm sure these are very nice drapes, but they're just not me. And these are some of the more subdued that we saw.

Painted wavy bricks. What's not to love?

Like I said, we assumed we'd want to live in a tower in town and be able to walk places. But the other thing is that after driving around the town I'm not sure where I'd want to walk to. It's mostly restaurants, all the same except for the meat, convenience stores, tailors and some unidentifiable shops (unless you read Korean.) I cannot tell by looking at them what on earth they sell. It looks like a bunch of junk piled in the windows. So its really not the kind of town I was expecting, like with cafes, boutiques, and a restaurant here and there. Marc says Seoul is a lot nicer. Gee, I hope so 'cuz Pyeongtaek sure doesn't have much curb appeal.
This is a very long way of saying that we finally saw a single-family home that we REALLY liked. When we walked in the first thing I thought was...Hallelujah! NO WALLPAPER. Well, actually I was wrong. Its covered in wallpaper but it was all nicely neutral. No big drapes, no busy patterns, no blue lights and no mini-multi-level flooring. Its plain and simple and modern. The only downfall (and that's a horrible pun) is that there are two flights of stairs. Wood stairs. Stairs give me nightmares. At any moment, one of us could take a dive down a set of very hard, slippery stairs. BUT, I said to myself, lots of people have stairs and somehow survive them. After thinking about it for a few days, we decided that this is the place we could see ourselves feeling the most comfortable in for the three years we're here. Its totally not what I would have thought we'd pick. It looks like a regular Western suburban home, which, back in the US, we're not at all interested in. But, somehow, being in Korea, it feels the most "comforting". The other places we saw were just too traditionally Korean. We're already living in rural Korea for Pete's sake, so I don't feel like everything about our life, including our home, has to be all up-in-our-grills Korean, you know? A little piece of America won't hurt the overall experience! It's definitely an anomaly compared to everything else in this area. Here it is...

It ends where the car is. That's another house on the right.

The kitchen. And Phone.

Master bath. Wowie.

It has 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 3 floors and a pristine kitchen. I realize this also means more I have to clean. The best part is that its brand new. I don't think I've ever lived anywhere that was brand new. But I have lived in my share of converted garages and shabby apartments with seriously gross kitchens. So this place feels like a palace! It does seem rather a cruel joke, though, that now that we have this big house with lots of space for get-togethers, holidays and friends and family, we're a million miles away from all of them! Honestly, I would rather live in a tiny apartment and be closer to people I love, but since we're here, I will accept this house as a consolation prize for moving to the other side of the world. 
I couldn't completely get away with no floral designs. Here's the fridge...

Its bedazzled! Those little dots are rhinestones. I'm serious!

We sign the lease next week and will hopefully move in on Thursday with temporary furniture until our household goods come in March. It will be so nice for the boys to have room to run around and a kitchen that actually opens up to the family room. Every other kitchen I've had is enclosed and I can never see what the boys are up to while I'm cooking. Yippee! The first rule in the house: No Socks on the Stairs!

The other big thing this week is that we bought a hooptie. She's Korean, she's terrific and she drives us all over the place. We decided to call her Linda.

Marc made me.