It's been three weeks since I moved to Seoul & I now have a home
Where I'm currently spending a lot of my time - the office.
My first week was me mostly going between a hostel and the office because Yangyang mixed up the dates and thought I was arriving a week later than I actually did. Fortunately, the two were right next to each other and it was quite nice to meet some other travellers.
The hostel, hidden in a corner. Took me ages to find it in the cold.
The Office
My office is in Itaewon, a neighbourhood in Seoul known for its foreign population. It's quite the mix of Korean hipster cafes, underground breweries and corner house traditional restaurants. The office is a new building in a low, 2 storied, newly constructed building. It is open, well-lit and Yangyang has done a wonderful job with setting it up.
The office. We're on the second floor there.
L-R: Harim, Yangyang and Hase.
The House
In the midst of a very busy week, Yangyang signed the contract for our new place which is just 300m from our office. It takes me ten whole minutes though because of the really steep climb. The place is great. It's on the top floor of a low-rise building and we have a wonderful view of the Namsan Tower from our balcony.
Usually out of breath from the REALLY steep climb when I reach our building.
The Namsan tower at night is usually blue/green/yellow - an indication of the air quality. I enjoy it.
Can't WAIT for the spring and summer so we can really make use of this beautiful terrace.
New Kitchen, Repainting and Newer Furniture
Of course, neither of us was happy with how the previous tenants did the apartment up so we went on a mission to redo it. We mainly wanted to get rid of the kitchen, install a new one and paint the walls. Sounds simple but took us 4 days to do it. By the end, I smelled of primer, was covered in paint, and my neck was incredibly sore from painting the ceilings but I had a home to come to!
The kitchen before.
Putty Putting.
This was a 90% girl-led mission. We're quite proud.
The kitchen after all the putty, paint and new IKEAware.
Me after the putty, primer and paint.
My room is rather small. It's only about 7 sq.m but we have a beautiful hall and I only need my room to sleep.
Spent a very nice Sunday assembling this cupboard.
Yangyang hasn't moved in yet so there's no pictures of her room but that's most of our house! It's really comfortable for two people.
On my way home on the second day, I saw an Indian flag fluttering in the sky. Turns out that, by pure coincidence, the Indian ambassador is my neighbour. My mother thinks I should go say hi to him. She doesn't seem to agree that I can't really ring at the massive gate and say that I just wanted to tell the ambassador that he now has a new Indian neighbour.
I've been eating a lot. Everyone worries for me all the time because they're afraid I'm not eating enough. Vegetarianism is a bit of an alien concept here. It's strange because so much of their food is vegan, even! I find it quite easy to remain vegetarian just eating Kimchi, soup, Kimbap and seaweed paper. And it's freakin' delicious!
But the kitchen is now set up and I went to the wonderland that is the Korean supermarket and picked up a lot of stuff to cook with and I'm back to cooking my own meals.
In My Free Time
In the time that I'm not working, I get lost in stationery stores where I honestly think I'm going to spend all my money. I've picked up some nice books as well. And I've been dancing. More on all this later! But this is why I've been quiet recently but hopefully I can get back into the steemgroove.