Stepping Onto Korean Soil

My plane landed here Tuesday night about 6pm. Surprisingly, going through Customs was a breeze – all they did was collect my two little pieces of paper I filled out on the plane saying I didn’t have duty-free items to declare and then stamped my passport and then it was on to baggage claim.

I GOT A STAMP IN MY PASSPORT!!!

After picking up my luggage, I was tasked with converting some money so I could buy a bus ticket to Gwangju. It was pretty uneventful as the KEB (Korean Exchange Bank) had a kiosk just ahead of baggage claim. Then I had to find a pay phone and attempt to use it to call my school and tell them I had landed and was about to buy a bus ticket. The phone was a little challenging as all of the buttons to use it were in Korean characters. That, and I wasn’t sure exactly how many of what type of coin to use. There were pictures of every coin the accepted. I just put the biggest one in and hoped for the best. I only gave me about a minute, but that was long enough.

I went outside and navigated to the bus ticket booth, along the way dodging the taxi drivers who were trying to pray on a naiieve American. (I was warned they would tell me anything in order to get me in their cab and would charge me as much as $100 to drive to Seoul – about 5 minutes away. I knew better, though, because a half hour cab ride in Korea is only roughly $8 - about 8,400 won.) After buying the bus ticket, I found my way to the bus and boarded for the 4 hour drive to Gwangju that only took about 3 hours because the driver drove like a complete maniac. I fell asleep though and eventually made it to the bus terminal in downtown Gwangju where I waited a few minutes for Michele and Stella (most Koreans who teach English adopt English names to make it easier for the foreigners) from my school to pick me up and then we drove about another 15 minutes to my apartment.

We got to my apartment about 11:30 at night and when I walked inside I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. Even the doors downstairs are beautiful – they’re glass double doors (I’ll take a picture sometime) with gold handles and relief glass flowers in the door. Its absolutely beautiful. And check out some of the pictures below of the inside (I have pink roses on the wall and my cabinets literally sparkle!):











Those pictures were taken the next day when I was waiting for Michele (the manager of my school) to come pick me up so I could meet everyone.

The apartment building is brand new, so I’m the first person to ever live in my apartment. The foyer is where Koreans take off their shoes before entering the home so that the floor of the home doesn’t get dirty. There is a ‘shoe closet’ in the foyer but it’s the only storage I have so I use it for my clothes. (I didn’t really mind wearing my shoes in the apartment at first, but almost three days later I’m starting to realize why they do this. I’ll explain in a later posting.)

When I enter my apartment, the bathroom is on the right. I have a Western toilet, which is pretty much the standard in Korea. Some are just a toilet seat on the floor over a hole, I assume with plumbing, but haven’t seen this yet. To the left of the toilet I have a sink with a small vanity area, and to the left of that on the wall I have a shower head. When I take a shower, I just stand in the bathroom in front of the sink and take the shower head down and take a shower. Everything pretty much gets wet. It’s okay though, and actually kind of cool. There is a little plastic cabinet in the bathroom to hold all of my things like makeup, etc., so that stuff stays dry. And there’s a cover over the toilet paper to keep that dry, too. There’s also a little window in there that leads out to the hall for ventilation. That white bowl on the floor is for washing delicates, but I moved it because it was in the way.

The rest of my apartment is pretty much like a dorm room with a small kitchen and clothes washer. The entire thing is about the size of the bedroom in my 1-bedroom apartment in Paddock Park in Ocala if you include the closet and bathroom from it.

It came furnished with a bed (a little smaller than a Full/Double), a table and two chairs, a small-ish refrigerator/freezer (the Milano cookies inside are just to show size because it’s something people back home can easily recognize to be a certain size), a small clothes washer (same idea with the Milanos), a 2-burner gas stove that I’m not quite sure how to use, a drying rack above that area to dry my clothes (Korean’s don’t use clothes dryers), a sink, dish drying rack, and some cabinets. My school even bought me some dishes, utensils and bread to welcome me into my new home. I think that’s pretty awesome. I also have a window in my kitchen area. I’m on the 3rd floor so I have a pretty good view of the surrounding area. And the kitchen/laundry area can be closed off from the main living area by glass sliding doors.

All in all, it’s pretty awesome.