Expat Expectations in Korea

I came across this post on The Hedonista about living in Dubai and what expats can expect when they live there, I thought I’d give a two-year view of what expats can expect in Korea. I think I’ve been here long enough to offer a succinct opinion. If there’s anything I’ve missed or something you disagree with, add it in the comments.

What you’ll miss when you move to Korea:

• Your favourite food from home – Everyone has one or two foods they miss terribly from home, because it’s just not available in Korea. There are ways of obtaining these foods (sometimes you can order them online, sometimes they can be found in the foreigner food market in Seoul, sometimes someone from home mails it to you) but for the most part, there are things you have to just do without. For me, these are ketchup potato chips, Fuzzy Peaches candy (and Twizzlers! And Reese’s cups!), Swiss Chalet chicken, and canned salmon. And even if you can find many things in Korea that you would get at home, a lot of the time you’re going to have to hunt for it. For example, my favourite tea is orange pekoe. Last year my mom sent me a tin full of Tetley tea bags, which was amazing. It was because I couldn’t find orange pekoe anywhere. This year, I decided to let her save the money on shipping and just find some black tea. Tastes almost the same, right? So I’ve gone almost an entire year drinking black tea, which has been okay. FINALLY, however, I was looking in the new E-Mart at the Daejeon bus terminal, and found Twinnings Ceylon Orange Pekoe tea in the International food section. I could almost swear I heard angels sing. Sometimes it just takes a while before you find the food you’re looking for.
• A proper bath tub – While there are benefits to a Korean bathroom (easy cleaning is one that comes to mind), girls especially will miss having an actual bathtub. Korean bathrooms and showers are just that – a shower head attached to the sink in your bathroom. No shower curtain or door, just the shower head. EVERYTHING gets wet, so be sure to leave your towel outside the bathroom. The only hope of actually getting a bath is by heading to the jjimjilbang (public bathhouse).
• Clothes shopping – Unless you’re a size 2, 5’4″ and under, with no bum and no hips to speak of, finding clothing in Korea is going to be hard as anything. Yes, there are a few random stores that will have clothing for a bigger person (I’ve been able to find shirts I like in the mens dept of Home Plus, and on trips to Seoul to Myeongdong and Itaewon), but the majority of the expats living in Korea are going to be stuck with the wardrobe that they brought with them in the first place. This goes for shoes too – a girl can only dream of walking into a regular shoe store and finding sizes bigger then a US 7.
• English TV – There are a few channels that have English shows on them, but if you don’t like CSI/NCIS or the Transformers movie, you might be out of luck. It is getting better (I’ve seen new shows like Suits, and Modern Family, and they even showed The X Factor, albeit a few weeks late), but for a TVholic like me, I miss being able to flip through channels mindlessly and be able to understand everything that’s being said on every channel. Oh, and I have never been able to find a regular TV schedule, so your guess is as good as mine as to when the TV shows you want to watch will be on.
• A clothes dryer – Every once in a while a kind-hearted boss will purchase a washing machine/dryer combo (same machine, just different cycles) for their foreign employee, but this is very rare. Most Korean households, and subsequently waygookin apartments, will only have a washing machine. (Most of the time, it’ll be in your bathroom.) You’ll have to hang your clothes to dry. Be prepared to plan out your outfit days in advance in the spring and summer (and fall too) because it will take your clothes a couple of days to dry. (The winter isn’t so bad, with the ondol heating your clothes should dry overnight.) What I wouldn’t give to be able to wash my clothes and take them out of a warm dryer 2 hours later.

What you WON’T miss when you move to Korea:

• Slow internet – Korean internet is the fastest in the world. No other country beats it. Simple as that. And the beauty of it all – it’s cheap and unlimited. You’ll never get a call from your internet provider saying you’ve gone over your bandwidth limit (I had that done to me COUNTLESS times in Canada). Downloading stuff from home gets done in a few minutes instead of a few days. It’s amazing.
• Vices – Depending on your vice, you’ll find it here. Cheap. Cigarettes cost 2,500 won a pack (approx $2 USD), alcohol is cheap (especially if you develop a taste for soju), and there are girls a-plenty (from what I understand – something about double barber poles).
• Exercise options – There are gyms all across the country, ready and waiting for waygookin to join. There is at least one in every neighbourhood. If you can’t find one, ask a Korean friend to help you. They can look it up on Naver. There are also yoga studios, taekwondo/hapkido schools, and more mountains to climb then I can count. If you want to stay fit while you’re in Korea, it can be done.
• Sweet things – I’m talking candy, pop, chips – all the treats you can wish for. You might have to settle for the Korean alternative (I was addicted to shrimp flavoured chips last year for a while, to help with the ketchup chip cravings), but if you have a sweet tooth, you won’t starve. Things to try – hoddeok, the sweet pancake you’ll find at the street vendors, and the multitude of donuts found at Dunkin’ Donuts. There are some interesting kinds!

There are so many more things to add to this list, I’ll edit it when I think about it… but for now, if you think of anything, add it to the comments!

xo nicole

Korea tip #14 – Learn to Read Korean!

This seems kind of self explanatory, but in my opinion, surviving in Korea is extremely hard if you don’t know how to read Korean (the written language is called Hangul). There are many people who will tell you this fact, I am just reiterating the point.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying ‘Learn Korean’. There’s a HUGE difference between learning how to read Hangul and learning the entire Korean language. I’ve been in Korea for two years and still can’t speak in a full sentence. I can direct a taxi, and order food, but those are just phrases I’ve picked up over time. (Mind you, I’ve never actually made a real effort to learn how to create sentences, so don’t think that I’ve tried and failed. I just haven’t really tried.) Reading, however, has saved my waygookin butt a few times. Many times, if you’re reading environmental print (bus stops, store signs, menus, etc) the words that are written are actually English words, just written in Hangul. If I didn’t know how to read, I would have just figured that they were Korean words and not understood them at all.

Learning how to read Korean is actually fairly simple because Hangul is phonetic. There are a few weird rules here and there, but for the most part when you see a symbol like ᄇ or ᄒ, they’re going to have the same sound no matter where they are in the word. There are only 24 consonant and vowel symbols in Hangul, and once you can recognize them and figure out how to read syllables, it becomes a breeze from there.

If you’re going to live in Korea (or visit for any decent length of time), make the effort to at least learn how to read the language. It will help you in the long run, I promise.

Here are some websites that will help you on your way:

Learn Korean.net – A free site with the first few lessons being on how to read.

A great flash exercise to help you to pair the symbols with the English sounds.

KoreanClass 101 youtube video – Great to hear the sounds if you’re an auditory learner.

재미봐! (Have fun!)

xo nicole

Korea tip #13 – Fast Food Restaurants

Korea may have delicious bbq, wonderful seafood restaurants, and lovely kimbap shops, but every westerner knows the benefit of a quick and easy hamburger and fries from McDonalds or Burger King. Or McNuggets, or chicken burgers, or even just a milkshake… but I digress. Fast food restaurants, for the majority of foreigners in Korea, is a little slice of home. Sometimes, however, it may be a little daunting for newbies. Sure, the menu at McDonalds may look the same as at home, but just try asking for a value meal. See what happens.

The availability of fast food is diverse throughout Korea. Lotteria is by far the most common fast food restaurant here, as it is owned by the Lotte company (Lotte Mart, Lotte Giants, Lotte everything just about…) so it is an Asian specific company. In my experience McDonalds is found in many high density areas, and Burger King is slowly creeping up. You can also find KFC, a spattering of Quiznos, and a few Subways in Seoul. There’s also another one that has recently become popular called Mom’s Touch, which is fried chicken and chicken burgers (with DELICIOUS fries, might I add!)

There are two challenges newbies face when eating at a fast food restaurant in Korea. I struggled with this for the first few months, so don’t be embarrassed.

First things first – how to order. What westerners know as extra value meals (or ‘meals’ for short) are called sets here. (In Konglish you’d say set-uh.) For example, if I was ordering a Big Mac meal, I’d say ‘ Big Mac set-uh’. This will get you the regular Big Mac, fries and a Coca-cola. I am being drink specific because Coca-cola (or Pepsi) is the default drink. If you don’t specify, they won’t ask you what kind of drink you want and you’ll automatically get Coke. Oh, and most items on the list are in English, just written in Korean, so you should be fine when ordering. This might become an issue with ordering at Lotteria, however, because the names of the burgers are kinda weird. Most Lotterias have convenient little menus that sit on the counter, so you can just point.

In Korea, they have this whole thing about charging companies money for drinking cups not being put in the right garbage receptacle (seeing as how they should be recycled). So, when you eat in at a fast food place, you’ll most likely get a plastic cup with no lid to drink out of. This goes for ice cream as well. Disposing of this is the second challenge when eating at a fast food restaurant. They’re kind of picky about what goes where.

McDonalds restaurants are great with the pictures of where to put stuff, but some places aren’t. You just have to open the flapping door to see what goes in there if there are no pictures. But anyways, there will be a place for you to empty any leftover liquid and ice from your cup, which you pour out, and then place the cup in the slot at the top (or sometimes at the side). Plastic lids and straws will have their own compartment, and so will food waste. The rest of it (paper, wrappers, ketchup packets, etc) are thrown in a completely different compartment.

If you are confused by this process, don’t worry. Like I said above, I was very confused for the first few months of living in Korea (thank goodness Ross knew what he was doing!). But sometimes things just weren’t labeled and we were both confused, so we played the waygookin card and just gave our trays to the people at the counter while sporting a “Sorry?” look on our faces. It has worked many times.

So, in closing, I just wanted to say good luck. Enjoy the burgers!

xo nicole

Korea Tip #12 – Daiso!

Haven’t done one of these in a while… guess now is as good a time as any to start again!

When you first arrive in Korea as a newbie teacher, many times your apartment will be sparse and have only the bare necessities. (Unless you were fortunate enough to have a teacher living before you who didn’t sell all their stuff off and/or kept a full supply of living requirements.) I’ve heard of new teachers arriving and there only being one place setting in the whole apartment – one plate, one cup, one fork, one knife, etc. This is a sad situation, and one that a newbie teacher should not have to endure, especially if they’re feeling homesick.

One of the downfalls about being a new teacher is that most of the time you arrive in Korea with a less then stellar bank account. This poses a problem if you want to set up your kitchen or make your house livable. Some people will head to the department stores, or even Home Plus or E-Mart in order to furnish their kitchen. Here’s a secret – head to Daiso.

Daiso is the Korean equivalent to the dollar store. They have so many household goods – everything you need for the kitchen, the laundry, cleaning, they even have pots for plants. Beauty stuff, school stuff, random little things that no one really needs but they buy anyways… it’s all at Daiso.

You can find a Daiso by walking around your neighbourhood. The sign is red and white, with dots.

 

 

 

The Daiso in our neighbourhood.

 

 

If you can’t find one in your neighbourhood, check your grocery store. Lotte Mart has their own Daiso section, and Home Plus and E-Mart both have dollar store-type sections to them. A first time teacher should not get sucked into buying 10,000 won plates and kitchen utensils.

VIPS Restaurant – Why I Love It

*Please note – I am not getting endorsed by VIPS Korea in any way for this post, this is just to show how awesome I think it is. Although I think I should get a free meal from this… *wink*

Last night, Ross, Alice and I went into Changwon, and did some Christmas shopping. We were very hungry, and decided to go to VIPS. Now, I am not unfamiliar with VIPS – it’s one of my favourite places to eat in Korea. But in our conversation, we figured that not many foreigners knew the benefits of VIPS, and what it could do for the waygookin soul.

The VIPS restaurant in south Daejeon.

VIPS is foreigner heaven. A steak house with a HUGE HUGE HUGE buffet filled to the brim of awesome goodness, you can eat to your hearts contents on food from home like Caesar salad (among other many different salads), smoked salmon, delicious pizza, chili, soup, pasta, fried chicken, rice, and many other delicious options. If you’re still feeling in an Asian mood, you can make Pho noodles or bibimbap as well. The steaks are wonderful too. I’ve never had the ribs, just because I’ve always wanted steak, but I’m sure they are awesome as well.

The thing is, is that VIPS is expensive. You can get the salad bar for around 25,000 won (prices fluctuate depending on day of the week and time of day), but for an extra 10,000 won you get a steak + salad bar. Here’s a tip – if you go to VIPS, get the steak. Fill up on the salad bar, and take the steak home. It’s worth it because you get to have a second meal the next day (scrambled eggs with steak – SOOO good!).

Another tip – when you go to a steak house in Korea, if it is not run by foreigners, Koreans tend to under-cook steak. So, for example, Ross likes his medium rare, so he will order it medium and it will come out perfect. I like mine medium well, and usually they do a good job on that, so I order mine medium well and if it’s not cooked enough I am still saving it for the next day, so I just cook it at home.

For those of you who have never been to VIPS, they are in high-traffic places (for example, I’ve seen VIPS in Hongdae in Seoul, Dunsan-dong  in Daejeon (as well as Seo-Daejeon), at Haeundae Beach in Busan, and in Changwon it’s right down the street from the Lotte Department store). The Korean website for it is http://www.ivips.co.kr/, and there is a link to the English description of the restaurant from there. If you are craving western food of all different kinds, VIPS is the place to go.

Okay, I have now finished my profession of love for VIPS. Time to go make my scrambled eggs with steak.

xo nicole

Damyang Bamboo Forest

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!

Last month, we went to the Damyang Bamboo Forest so that we could get in touch with nature. It was a super crazy weekend filled with wrong choices in transportation, searching for food that wasn’t 30,000 won a serving, and walking through a forest that was absolutely gorgeous.

When I decided that I wanted to go to the bamboo forest, I thought about inviting Laura and her friends from Busan. They came to stay at our place for the night before, because I thought there was a train that went from Masan to Gwangju. I was fully wrong! We got to the train station Saturday morning and the train that I had booked tickets for would actually take us back to Busan!! So we had to rush to get refunds on our tickets, and try to figure out a way to get to Gwangju so that we could get to Damyang. We ended up taking a bus that made two stops in Masan – one at the bus terminal near Shinsegae, and the other in NAESEO. Yes, our neighbourhood bus terminal. We didn’t even need to go all the way into Masan! I was really quite angry with myself over the confusion for the transportation, seeing as how I’m usually super on top of things like that, but oh well. If anyone is curious, there are two train stations in Korea named Songjeong – one in Gwangju (it’s not the main train station in Gwangju, just the alternative one) and one in Busan. That lead to the confusion. Anyways….

We finally got to the bus terminal in Gwangju after a 3 hour bus ride. We asked the lady at the information counter how to get to Damyang, and all it took was to buy a ticket for a local bus to Damyang that left from the same place. The bus took us directly to the bus terminal in Damyang (which was SUPER small, but not surprising seeing as how it’s a small town). Apparently there’s a city bus that leaves from the back entrance of the main train station that takes you directly to the bamboo forest, just in case anyone is interested. But we got to the bus terminal and decided to go look for food.

Damyang is popular for two dishes – 떡갈비, which is ddeok galbi, or the Korean alternative to the hamburger, and 대나무 통밥집, or bamboo rice. In a Korean person’s opinion, if there’s something you must do when you go to Damyang other then see the bamboo forest, it’s to eat these two dishes. We asked the lady at the bus terminal where to get these, and she directed us to two restaurants. Both, believe it or not, were 30,000 won a serving for the ddeok galbi. None of us could afford that, so we decided to keep looking. Finally, we found a place that had both items for a more reasonable price, so we indulged. And it was good!

This is what we ordered.

And this is just some of the food that came to our table. You gotta love Korean side dishes!

The bamboo rice. It wasn’t really anything too special, just neat that it came in a piece of bamboo.

After the meal, we finally descended on the bamboo forest. There are two bamboo forests in Damyang, but the biggest is Juknokwon. This is the one we went to. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

The entrance to the forest.

The only path in the entire forest that didn’t have anyone on it. The most serene path in the whole place. The rest of it was PACKED with people.

From my action sampler.

The group of us that went – L-R. Ross, Me, Alex, Amanda, Laura, Eric, Dorrial

Dorrial being a gymnast.

There were a couple more pics I wanted to put up, but wordpress is being silly and won’t rotate the pictures. So I’ll try to do that later.

Anyways, we ended up leaving through the back end of the forest (there are two entrances, just in case anyone was wondering) and we ended up leaving the group at that point. Ross was REALLY sick, and I was getting a headache. I guess all the clean air was getting to me! We ended up taking the city bus back to Gwangju, and taking a bus back to Masan the same day instead of finding a hotel room in Gwangju like we had planned. But all in all it was a great weekend.

**A note to people who go to the bamboo forest – it’s not how the pictures on the tourism website show. The website makes it look like it’s really peaceful, with few people and that you can walk around the place anywhere you want. Not so. It was PACKED with people, and you could only walk on roped off pathways. So if you’re looking for a serene, peaceful stroll through bamboo, go during the week (and not on a holiday or the weekend) when there will be fewer people. Trust me. Saturday afternoon is not the best time to go. Maybe in the morning?

Yay! I finished a blog post that I meant to do a month ago!! Now it’s time to get ready for school and enjoy my Canada Day! Oh, and Daejeon, here we come!

xo nicole

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo in Korea

12 069 km. That’s the distance between Seoul, South Korea and Mexico City, Mexico. While the populations are very similar, the cities are like night and day from each other. So are the cultures. But that didn’t stop us from celebrating Cinco de Mayo!

I apologize for the lack of pictures, but I was having too much fun and was way too busy to take any. But I did manage to take lots of pictures of our pinata!

We made our pinata into a donkey, here’s a picture of the body in its beginning stages.

  We put two balloons together, taped paper tubes for the legs and constructed a head out of cardboard. In order to make the middle less, well, balloony shaped, we put two more pieces of cardboard around it, but didn’t really tape it down. This might have added to the strength of it in the end, which made it last longer.

We used a flour and glue mixture for the paste, because we couldn’t find anything like plaster of paris or anything. We used 1 part flour to 5 parts water, mixed them together and boiled it for 3 minutes. After the first layer, we stopped boiling it and just used 1 part flour to 1 part water, and it worked just the same. But the first layer was thicker paper than newspaper, and that added a good strong base. We then left it to dry, and then continued to use newspaper for the rest of the layers. Ross added in a few pieces of magazine paper, which worked just as good. Overall, there were 5 layers of newspaper and stuff on it before we put the decorations on it.

For the decorations, we used Korean tissue paper, which is a little stronger than North American tissue paper, cut it into strips, then frayed the edge on one side, and taped it around the body. We wrapped the head like a present, and gave him a red headband.

Anyways, back to the party. We had awesome food, courtesy of just about everyone who came to the party, which included guacamole, salsa, tacos, chicken wings, kebabs, and strips of beef. It was an amazing spread, considering the lack of good things available in this country.

For those of us who live in Korea, we know that there are things here that can be difficult to find. Avocados, limes, brick cheese, good salsa (and I emphasize the ‘good’), sour cream, taco mix and hard taco shells are all things that you either have to search for or are completely non-existent in this country. If you are planning a Cinco de Mayo party, look for avocados and limes in big grocery stores like Home Plus and E-Mart. (Although I just happened to run across perfectly ripe avocados in our local Lotte Mart, but I think fate put those there for me…)  You can get large vats of sour cream and salsa, as well as large bricks of cheese from Costco, but you have to be lucky enough to live close to one. There are websites, however, that can send you cheese and even refried beans on time if you time it right. These include NiceDeli and EZShopKorea. The taco mix will have to come home, unless you happen to make your way to Itaewon in Seoul (which, if you live in Seoul isn’t difficult, but when you live in Masan it’s hard). Hard taco shells are the worst to find, because they just simply don’t exist here, but you can find plenty of soft tortilla wraps, so at least you’ve got that.

Anyways, after the food we took the pinata to the park, for the extra room, and also in hopes that there would be some Koreans to watch. And there were plenty of people there to watch!

Steven getting ready to hit!

Hanging it from a tree.

Spinning around 5 times. (I pointed him in the wrong direction.)

Tom giving it a final whack.

This was one of the little girls watching, she got SOOOOO much candy!

Wonky’s head!

We had an awesome party, and I am so thankful for everyone who came!

Ross’s visa, the whole story.

Now is the time to finally discuss all that happened with Ross’s Korean visa, with all the frustration, confusion, anger and finally relief.

Let me start by saying we ended up going to the consulate 7 times. A few of those times were unsuccessful because I forgot transcripts twice. That was my fault. I read the wrong page on the Toronto consulate’s website, and did not bring what was needed. Twice. Lesson learned there. The other times were because of the stupidity of the situation and the miscommunication between the consulate and Korean immigration.

After we submitted our visas, we were told it would be 5-10 business days before our visas would be issued. This was the first problem, because we were booked to fly out in 6 business days. We told her our predicament, and she said she would process them as soon as she could. This was nice to know that she was going to work hard on them. 3 business days later, Wednesday, Ross gets a call from the woman, saying that when she went to process his visa, the computer said that he would have to go to his home country of America in order for everything to work.

Now, this I could understand if this was his first visa. When you get your first Korean visa, you are supposed to get it from your home country so you can have an interview. After that, you should be able to get any subsequent visas from any country, as most people who get a second visa don’t end up going home but travel to Japan on a visa run. So this shouldn’t have been a problem.

We asked her what could be done about the situation, she said she didn’t know, but we should get the school to call immigration in Korea and have them change it in their computer system. I emailed our recruiter, Dylan, who by the way was WONDERFUL through all of this, and told him of the problem. He called the school, who called immigration, and we were told that it had all been fixed. The next day we called the consulate, but the result was the same – the computer still said that Ross had to go to America. Once again, an email was sent to Dylan, and the school called immigration, and by Friday we were beyond frustrated. We called the consulate again, and the woman was out of ideas. She said she didn’t know what was wrong, that he should be able to get his visa in Canada, but because of what the computer said she couldn’t process it or else she would lose her job if someone caught her. She said she needed a document from immigration in Korea that said it would be okay. Ross suggested she email immigration. She replied “I guess I could do that”. I mean, come on! She could have done that days ago! We were so angry, we went to the consulate that afternoon to pick up my passport with my newly pressed visa in it, and to question her in person. We were successful in getting my passport back, but unsuccessful in getting a solid answer out of her regarding what she was going to do.

I called Dylan and explained the conversation we had with her. He said he would talk to the school, and see what could be done. The problem was, was that it was already Saturday in Korea, and we were running out of time. On Monday, our director ended up physically going to immigration in Masan and making sure that the consulate and immigration were communicating via email. She was able to obtain a copy of the communication, which Dylan sent to us on Sunday night. (Yes, I know I just went back in time, gotta love the time difference.)

Monday in Toronto the consulate was closed for Family Day, so we were pressed for time because we were supposed to fly out Tuesday night. SO, Tuesday morning we got Robyn, who was our saving grace, to drive us downtown for our 6th trip to the consulate. We brought along a copy of the email Dylan sent us, and she said she would FINALLY be able to process the visa because of that piece of paper. I don’t know why she didn’t have a copy of her own, but oh well. Everything was going to work out. Except that we had to go back down for 4pm. Even though our flight was leaving 5 hours later, and we wanted to spend as much time at home as possible. *sigh* So back down to the consulate we went, getting there at 3:30, and was told to come back AT FOUR. Oops. A quick last visit with Ricky (who just so happens to live right down the street), and at 4:15pm Tuesday night, after almost a week of frustration, Ross had his visa in hand. THANK GOODNESS.

Now here comes the editorial. I am not say that the Toronto consulate was wrong, because the woman who issues the visas was just doing her job. I am also not saying that immigration was wrong, because in their system he was fine to get his visa in Toronto. I AM saying that there needs to be better communication between the two. I don’t understand why she wouldn’t have just emailed them in the first place, and I don’t know why there had to be a glitch in the system. I think that the time difference was working against us, because if we had been in even remotely a closer time difference the two might have been open at the same time and a phone call could have simply been made. On the other hand, the time difference was for us, because if the consulate had not been a day behind immigration, we might not have been able to get the copy of the email in time.

I just hope that the consulate and immigration could learn from this horrible mix-up, and end up  communicating better with each other next time.

I would like to thank the following people for their help in the process: Dylan, for all his back and forth between us and the school, and for all the phone calls he had to make to Canada, Robyn for driving us down there on Tuesday morning, Ricky for keeping us company while we were in the city, our director who had to make all those calls and the trip to immigration, and my mom and dad for keeping me level headed while all this was happening. Without them, we would not be in Korea. Thank you.

Our apartment is falling apart.

Our apartment, for those of you who haven’t been privileged enough to receive a Skype tour, is an old, fairly large ‘villa’. A ‘villa’ in Korea does not mean a huge, resort-style getaway that the word means in English – it means you live over a business. Simple. And these businesses have been here for a LONG time, so the apartments are really old and don’t conform to building standards. Needless to say, our apartment is falling apart, fast.

I did a blog post last week on what happened to our sink. It still isn’t fixed because we couldn’t get a hold of our landlord. And our wall above our bedroom window is getting worse. It leaks when it rains (which, lately, has been quite often) and it’s spreading across the wall underneath the wallpaper.

As far as I know, we’re not going to have to pay for the window, because that is not our fault at all, but we will have to pay for the sink. What sucks even more, is that the reasons we have to pay for the sink are as follows:

• we didn’t tell them when it was loose, so if we had of told them before, they could have fixed it
• we have friends over, so who knows who actually broke it – it could have been our friends who broke it, which would, according to our landlord, put the responsibility on our friends and us rather then our landlord
• nowhere in our contract does it say that the school is responsible for repairs. nowhere in the contract, however, does it say that WE are responsible for repairs. it falls on the landlord to decide, and the school to agree. so, of course, who comes out on the losing side? us.

it’s just frustrating to have this all happen now, when we are 82 days away from leaving, and we want a good recommendation from our school for our next jobs. we don’t want to piss them off, nor do we want to pay for the repairs when we feel that they aren’t our fault. well, maybe the sink was our fault, but if it’s going to be outrageously expensive, we can’t afford to pay for it.

*sigh*

the life of being in a country where the rules are completely different from your own.

KOREA TIP - make sure to read your contracts over VERY VERY carefully, and make sure that they stipulate who is going to pay for repairs. also, keep your apartment clean, because your landlord could use that as an excuse for not paying for repairs as well.

xo nicole

Korea tip #11

11. Make sure you keep yourself hydrated and stocked up on vitamin C while living here. If this weekend has proved anything, and the fact that I am still super sick and am heading to the doctor in an hour, it’s that you always have to take care of yourself. Korea definitely has different germs then North America, and I really think my immune system is shot.