My Apartment

My apartment is a one room studio on the 1st floor over the parking garage. It’s right next door to the school, so it only takes a second to get there. The owner of the school was nice and bought new bedding, but I am glad I brought my own sheets because Korean “sheets” are like gigantic, stiff, paper waffles. I actually skinned my knee on them the first night.

The apartment is pretty small, but the shower is huge – in that the whole bathroom is a shower. You know the hose you have on the kitchen sink? Well I have a big hose attached to my sink with a holder on the wall. It was weird at first, but now I kind of like it. Just check the potty seat before you sit down – it is shocking and gross to sit on a wet seat.

I was disappointed by the apartment at first, and though I have gotten used to the hole in the ceiling, the chipped paint on the walls, and the wobbly, yellowed furniture and appliances, there are a few things I can’t get used to:

1. The smell. The streets of Korea posses a caustic, wretched smell like that of raw sewage, natural gas, and rotting cabbage. Combined with the intolerable, heavy, wet heat and thick, polluted gray air, it is impossible to breathe. If you stand still for too long in one spot, your eyes bleed. That’s why Koreans are always in a hurry.
Unfortunately, this pungent odor seems to have taken up permanent residence in my apartment. Windows open, windows closed. Wind, rain, and shine. It mysteriously seeps in. Luckily, it can confined to the bathroom. However, this is a catch-22. Close the bathroom door and risk sudden death when you open the door? Or, let it quietly diffuse throughout the room and be slightly nauseous every day? I choose to keep the door closed. This will probably be how I die.

2. No hot water. That’s just dumb.

Mail me a gas mask,
Rachel