Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Apartment Tour in Pictures.



Video forthcoming. I also have some pictures of our flight over.



Landscape.


We were really fortunate to get seats in the exit aisle. Dan is a tall man, and I don't think he would have been able to suffer 14 hours in a regular seat. The plane itself was huge. I've never been on a plane so big. It was three aisles across, and there was even a second story for Prestige customers. They had fully reclining seats and a whole mess of unnecessary but awesome things.


We were right near one of the galleys. They provided us with "Wake Me" stickers. I didn't actually fall asleep, which is weird because I sleep on two hour flights. If I had fallen asleep, though, I would have affixed the "Please Wake Me for Meal Service" sticker to the neck rest of my seat. We had our first Korean meal on the flight, some Bibimbap.


We flew over Canada, past Vancouver, and then down to South Korea. I had never seen anything like this.


I took way to many pictures of these ice caps or glaciers or whatever they were.


Korean Air.


I had to forfeit my favorite blanket in Florida to our luggage restrictions. I wanted to have this one, but it was strictly prohibited. On the left, in the background is my little TV monitor. It kept me very occupied. Also keeping us occupied, the constant flow of food and beverages. It was wonderful. At one point, they gave us these really tasty rolls with some sort of meat filling. Dan got two and both were cold in the middle. I got one and it was perfect. That seems like some sort of life lesson.


Plane.


Mountains. Inverse.


If you can see the little plane icon toward the left, that's us making our descent to South Korea. The plane had a tracker so we could see where we were at all times. Very handy. I checked it in between movies.


Then here we were in Korea! An etiquette bell in the bathroom. Haha.


So this is in our apartment. Luke, the head of the English Department, bought us some groceries, and then took us out on Saturday night to buy more. Two things he had bought ahead of time: Breath ball toothpaste and something called Sugar Bubble. We could not figure out what Sugar Bubble was at first. They have liquid sugar at the coffee shops here, so we thought maybe it was actually sugar. We both tasted it. Apparently Dan could tell right away it was soap, it still tasted sort of sugary to me. Even still, it was not very foamy and continued to confound us a little bit. I just looked it up online. It looks like it's a fruit and vegetable wash.


Kellogg's Almond Frosted Flakes. Their cereal boxes fold down like that. It's really cute. So, I mentioned that we went out shopping on Saturday night. We arrived in Seoul on Saturday, and we hit the ground running. It was pretty intense. We went straight from the airport to Home Plus, which is basically like a mall in one building. We ate Korean dinner as giant Americans surrounded by Koreans. Two separate babies looked up at Dan and gasped. I am not making that up. It was very a intimidating experience, compounded by the fact that we had been up for 24 hours by the end of it. I wasn't sure I was going to make it that night. Sunday was much better though. We went to breakfast at the Principal's house, and then his son, Andrew, walked us to church. We recognized a handful of the worship songs, and another teacher, Rachel, translated the sermon for us. Monday was a national holiday, Independence Day. In 1919, Korea declared its dependence from Japan. And now it's Tuesday, Dan's at work, and we are really excited to be here. It's going to be good, I think.


Moving on. A ton of bananas and bottled water.


Our Western style bed and new bedding. The school has been incredible so far. They bought us a toaster oven and just brought us a two piece couch yesterday.


Shoe drop.


Shelf of a cabinet by the door. We put books above this and some shoes below.


Bath mat.


Styrofoam from the toaster oven. Dan making the same face.


So this is our bathroom. From left to right: washing machine, toilet, shower, sink. The whole bathroom is tiled, so the whole bathroom is essentially the shower. I know that seems weird, but it's actually quite lovely. I feel like it makes so much more sense than an actual shower. It gets tricky to lather up shampoo, but I'm working on that. Speaking of shampoo, it's crazy expensive here ($10), and they basically only have Pantene Pro-V and Head & Shoulders.


Right now we have no clothing furniture. Dan's clothes are spread out on one section of the couch, mine are still in my suitcase. Luckily we thought to bring this rack from home. We've been able to hang scarves, ties, belts, and some sweaters. I made a little shoe cabinet out of the toaster oven box. We also made our end tables out of boxes from Home Plus. No big deal. I did read about watching for decent discarded furniture on the street. We're not afraid of a little dumpster diving.


Kitchen sink and gas stove top. I think the previous tenants left all these dishes. They're all nice little China. A lot of banchan dishes but some Western plates, too. Just so you know, Koreans eat a lot of food with spoons. I am thankful for that. Also just so you know, metal chopsticks are harder to use than wooden ones.


Our extra room. We figured we were getting a one bedroom apartment, so it's doubly nice to have an extra room. Bonnie will appreciate that when she comes. We have our drying rack set up in there. By now there's the other half of the couch in there also.


See? I'm alive.

So I'll try to take interesting pictures and do interesting things, but it is nice sometimes to sit inside all day with the warm floors, listening to Jackson Browne and falling asleep.

-Serenity

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