Home Sweet Home

This post has been a long time coming.  I have always had the intention on posting about my apartment, but I choose to wait for a while.  I have been blessed with a great apartment.  It is much bigger than I anticipated when I moved here.  My apartment used to be used for couples.  I am unsure how I was lucky enough to be placed here since I am single.  But I do enjoy it :)  I was even more shocked that I received this apartment when I found out the previous teacher at my school actually lived closer to the school and in a much smaller apartment.

I live on the 11th floor and have a fantastic view looking back towards Seomyeon.  There is a mountain behind my complex and I can get onto hiking trails within 5 minutes of leaving my building.  It really is a great location for me.  The only downside is I don't live close to a subway station.  It takes me 15-20 minutes to get to a subway station and that makes getting anywhere seem to take forever.  But that one downside is outweighed completely by all the positives of my apartment.

Since today was a wonderful day with spring like temps (in the 60's!!!), I took the time to do some spring cleaning.  With the apartment clean and everything put away and organized it was the perfect time to take pictures of my apartment!  So welcome to my South Korean home :)

What you see when you enter my door.

Looking back at the front door.  The coats on the right are actually on a closet door.  It's a pretty large closest that I don't use all of it.  On the left side is my shoe cabinet and a seat to use when putting on your shoes.  Where the floors change is actually a slight step.  In Korean houses, you ALWAYS take off your shoes at the door.  The raised floor is for sandals or house shoes, but not outdoor shoes.

The top part of my shoe cabinet is serving as the place for me to store my summer clothes, extra jackets, and bags.

And the bottom part of my shoe closet is definitely for shoes and also for umbrellas.  I think I have 4 umbrellas.

Just as you walk into my apartment on the right side is  my spare bedroom.  When I first arrived in my apartment it took me a few minutes to realize I had a two bedroom apartment.  The couch was originally in here but I moved it out and use this mostly as storage.

I store extra food on the bookshelf and extra water, toilet paper, and kleenexes below the desk part.  I also keep up with bills and such here.

I also keep my dresses and other dress clothes here along with my suitcases.  I also keep some extra boxes here so I can mail things home.

While its winter, I also dry my clothes in here.  They dry faster inside with the floor heat than they do on the balcony.  At the door is also where I keep my recyclables.  Korea recycles everything it seems like.  It is very important to recycle.  They separate everything out and they even have a separate trash can for food waste.  I haven't taken my recycling out for the last few weeks which is why there is so much.  I can recycle every Tuesday and Friday.

Walking forward in my apartment is the kitchen.  I have a 2 burner stove.  I also have a microwave on top of my refrigerator.  It's quite a bit of space considering my friends kitchen is the size of my sink and the extra space between my sink and stove.  Seriously, her kitchen is tiny.  Makes me feel super blessed to have what I have.

Across from my sink is my dining area.  I have a nice small table and an island that I moved to the corner.  Originally the island was right across from the sink with the table back up against it.  I moved the island to the corner so it didn't feel so cramped in the kitchen area.  On the wall in the background are all my prayer cards of my many friends and classmates that are living throughout the world sharing the Gospel!

My letters are increasing!  I love how much the door is filling up with letters and cards from family and friends back home!  There is another door behind that door.  They slide to close the area between the kitchen and bedroom.  It mostly stays open just like it is in this picture.

When looking at the picture above there is another door to the right but out of the picture.  It is directly across from my refrigerator.  It's to the bathroom.  The best thing about my bathroom is that I have a bathtub!!  Most bathrooms in Korea do not have bathtubs or even a space for a shower.  Most bathrooms have the shower head connected to the sink and you stand in front of the sink to shower.  Basically everything gets wet in the bathroom.  Seriously, I love having a bathtub and not a shower above my sink :)

The mirror on the right is actually a medicine cabinet.  There is quite a bit of space in my bathroom.  It's great.

Love that I figured out that suction cups work on my tiled wall to hand out my hairdryer and straightener.  It's so nice to get those up and out of the way.

And my bedroom.  I closed the sliding doors so you can see it both ways.  This is looking back towards the kitchen, which means if you walk from my kitchen to my bedroom the bed is on the right.  

I have the one small bookcase beside my bed and then this larger one at the end of my bed.  They are filling up quickly!  Mostly with books about Korea or learning the Korean language :)  Realized today that I have a Korean-English Dictionary that I didn't know I had.  It was evidently left my previous residents.  Thankful for it!  Oh and in this picture you can see most of the window/sliding door to my balcony.  It's 2/3 of the window.  It's great to have such a big window to allow so much natural light into the bedroom.  I love it!

On the other side of my bedroom is my closet, couch, and TV.  The space between the bed and couch is about 7 feet.  My bedroom has a lot of space.  It's really nice.  I didn't post pictures of my apartment when I fist moved here because my bedroom is about the size of some of my friends entire apartment.  I didn't want it to seem like I was bragging about my apartment.  It really is great and I'm so thankful that this was the apartment given to me.  My apartment is really becoming home and I love it.

My closet: organized and everything!!  I bought the 6 drawers on the bottom last week because the bottom of the closet was just a big open space and I couldn't really use it productively.  It's so nice to able to organize and put my clothes up (granted it won't last but its still nice to have it).

Can't forget the balcony!  As you walk out the door by the TV you are standing with the chair on your right.  The area to the left where the air conditioner is is where I typically dry my clothes.  I also have a second chair that is usually on the balcony but my friend is borrowing it while she has family and friends in town.  It's great on warm nights to sit out on the balcony with the doors open and enjoy the evening.

The other side of the balcony is my washing machine.  The cabinet above has my laundry detergent and extra towels and sheets.   Above the chair you can also see another clothes rack.  It pulls down but I just leave it down.  I typically dry towels and sheets on it and use the other one for my clothes.

Looking out the balcony.  My balcony has 4 doors that slide to open up a space of 2 doors to the outside.  There are also sliding screens to cover the area that is open.  I love being able to have fresh area, especially on a day like today when it was in the 60's.  It was cloudy all day and started to rain this evening, but I was able to have the door open all afternoon while I cleaned.  It helped keep me motivated for sure!

Well I hope you enjoyed your tour of my apartment.  It really is home sweet home.  It's been a great apartment and thankful that this is home for now :)