tales from Korea

Moving into our own place, Jayeon and I, it’s just fantastic.

We were a little lucky with what we got, an officetel in fantastic condition with a good location and view.

Check out this video I recorded with my iPhone; there are no titles, cuts or transitions… too lazy!

This is a video of what a Korean Norae (Song 노래) bang (room 방) looks and sounds like. The Korean song room is a much loved past time, I took a video a little while back but never managed to post about it, so here ya go. I’m not singing here at all… I’m so bad compared to Jayeon and her family who all seem to be naturally good singers. Stars: Jayeon, her mom and Myung-gi – her brother.

I’ve now been in Korea for six days, it feels so strange – almost more like two weeks or something. I’m surprised myself about how easily I’ve fitted in and how quick and well adjusted JaYeon’s family were with my moving in. Many days have been spent settling in – we went on a few trips to the different shopping outlets to pick up some things. When I got here I only had one pair of shorts, and quickly realised I had no need for jeans or jumpers – not for a month or two anyway. The heat is something else at the moment, I’m changing my clothes about twice a day and taking multiple showers because I’m sweating so much – yuk.

The place we’re living in something else – I’m working on taking some video of the building and around this area so that will be worth a separate post. It feels to me at least, that I’m right here in the middle of Seoul – looking out our widow there are busy city streets, stacks of bright flashing hangul neon signs and tall skyscrapers with flashing warning lights on the top. In the distance you are surrounded pretty much on all sides by mountains – Korea is a predominantly mountainous country, over 70% of the land is rising above the flat plains in steep curvatures. Everywhere you go when you look in the distance you’re greeted by a hulking, forest covered mountain.

European style cafes, 7-Elevens, Family Marts, tiny busy local restaurants, 24-hour McDonald’s, street food, fortune tellers, Prada bags, fusion restaurants, dark seedy top floor massage parlours, PC bangs, song rooms, pool halls, shopping centres and much more all surround us. There is so much to look, wow and shun at – I need a few more days to let this new place really sink in, and then I’m ready to start learning about the real Korea.

It was great news to hear that JaYeon’s brother was cleared by the doctor and doesn’t in fact have the chronic back problem they suspected he might have. It’s also good to know my original situation of living in JaYeon’s apartment will now go ahead! It may be a little squashed for a couple of weeks, as Myung-Gi will most likely still be staying there by the time I land in Korea. At the same time, I’m looking forward to meeting all of JaYeon’s family. So now that I know I’ll be living in Bundang I’ve been doing a little routing around for information on the city. I was surprised to find a Wikipedia entry that documents some pretty detailed information. First and foremost, Bundang is considered to be a very wealthy region. JaYeon calls it “One of the snobbiest towns in or around Seoul” and comments how she’d prefer to still be living in her town that they’re moving from. Bundang is primarily a residential area with many tall apartment blocks using yuppie sounding English names to try and make them sound more posh. Some of them are actually pretty hilarious, I like the “Royal Palace Houseville” (interesting amalgamation of words), this apartment building is just down the road from where we’ll be staying. Even the place we are staying in doesn’t escape the posh naming, it’s called the “Hyundai Pantheon” – Pantheon a word that literally translates from Greek meaning “a temple of all gods”, not the most modest of names is probably sounding like an understatement. In reference to the apartment block we are staying in – I’ll save it for a post that I’ll draw up once I’m actually there and have explored the building itself, let’s just say the place could be described as being ridiculous – it’s 27 stories, has a few levels of shops and a level of leisure facilities including a swimming pool and GYM, not to mention the 320 or so apartments contained within. The most awesome thing about the location of our apartment block is its proximity to the subway station, it’s literally one block away – about 3 minutes walk. If I were offered a position in Seoul it would be very convenient to take the subway into the city.

There are a few ridiculous buildings in Bundang, such as St. John’s Cathedral – the largest Catholic Church on the Asian continent (not that I care about religion, though). The Seongnam-Arts Centre looks totally awesome, the style and slickness defiantly reflects the attitude of Bundang itself. There are loads of public schools in Bundang, mostly elementary, and JaYeon informs me there are also a lot of Hagwon (Private institutes). Overall Bundang seems like a well-developed area with modern services and should be a nice place to live, even if the snobbiness gets a bit annoying. I’ll be able to cast a better judgement once I’m there, of course.