One of my co-teachers approached me today and told me that the contract is up for the apartment I'm living in now and asked if I wanted to renew it. She also told me where I could move to, if I wanted to move out. The apartment is a lot cheaper, my bills would be cut in half, and I could walk to and from school everyday and I would be in a more central location and there are 4 other English teachers who live in the building that has about 16 apartments. All of these things sounded great and its a principal-to-principal connection so it's completely safe. My CT asked if I was interested and I said sure and we went to look at it this afternoon. While I sat at my desk during these phone calls setting up a meeting place I started imagining what this apartment would look like and how I could walk to the beach everyday after school for a thirst-quenching beverage at one of the many foreigner friendly watering holes in Gwangan.
Now I've visited a number of apartments in Korea and I'll admit some are shoe boxes, some are the size of a bachelor's apartment back home, and some are awesome, like mine. So going into this visit I told myself If I can fit my couch somewhere, I could use two regular sized pots at one time on the elements and there was a view I'd consider it. Well my co-teacher and I walked there passing a lot of my students along the way. We cut through an auto shop and went down a narrow alley to meet this other principal who didn't even greet me. When we got inside the halls were air conditioned which was nice because there isn't an elevator and principal couldn't remember what room was vacant. His wife does most of the stuff for the building.
He tried phoning his wife to ask her what room was available but she didn't answer three times. We decided we would go and see it another day. The three of us piled into a luxury car with the AC blaring (it goes without saying that I was sweating profusely because midday in Busan is comparable to temperatures in Hell) and I found out a little bit about the apartment and the principal by talking through my co-teacher while we backed out of what I later discovered to be a road. I found out the apartment was less than 40 square meters which made me very skeptical. All of sudden, his wife calls back.
He gets the room number and password we march up to the third floor while I ponder how this couch can fit in these narrow hallways. It'd be a tight squeeze to say the least. When he opened the door there was a 4"x 5" foyer with some shelves for shoes and other things. Certainly no cowboy hats, a basketball or, more importantly, coats. After that we stepped into the main room, half of which was dedicated to a long dresser and a double bed. The bathroom was a typical Korean bathroom where there's no shower stall. The kitchen/ laundry room was a narrow 4" x 10" jut off of the main room. Knowing the furniture in my apartment the school owns and is required to bring in the move I would be climbing over everything to get in and out. It would really force me to sight see a lot of the time.
"Talk about the view!"
How could I forget, I had one window in the kitchen/ laundry room five feet away from another building. The furniture was really beautiful and well-kept but I didn't see a single upgrade from my current apartment a part from the location. From another perspective though living a 20 minute walk away from another beach, 4 minutes from a grocery store and department store, having a network of friends in the area, and just the sense of familiarity was enough to make the decision that I wouldn't downgrade at this point. However, If they had dropped me off here a year ago I wouldn't have complained because I wouldn't have known the sweet life.
I've lived in shoe boxes for five years in university and I'm really happy to have an open-concept loft to call home for the time being. The bills are a little ridiculous at times but I'm good at budgeting myself to and extent. This apartment has spoiled me and I think it's one of the major reasons why I wanted to renew along with doing something I love and gaining tons of new experiences along the way. It would have been nice to live closer to other things but while in the apartment I imagined myself sitting at my desk in the middle of winter, looking out at a grey brick wall, lamenting how I had a pretty awesome apartment with a splendid view, a couch, and just a really awesome vibe despite the off-white wall paper. So as I look out at the moon and the lights of other apartments drinking the juice I bought on sale, I'd have to say I'm really happy with where I've ended up.
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