The Digs

It is raining in Busan - AGAIN - so I'm finishing up these blog posts I have started. Especially the picture ones! The following photos were taken the day I arrived, but I have to be honest, my apartment hasn't changed much. (THIS. IS. SPARTAN.)

Check out that wallpaper. Fantastic.

Quite frankly, I was quite pleasantly surprised by my spacious (har har) living space upon my arrival in Korea. True, the apartment is mind-bogglingly cramped, but I expected worse - and a few of my coworkers HAVE it worse, so I can hardly complain. My shabby digs are my own, at least. I don't have to share space with anyone but my swarms of mosquitoes and my ego.

Korean beds are sort...I don't know. Very hard and simple. My back hurts a lot. Then I have a nightstand and a bureau.Tiny orange garbage bin!

Hello, room of tile and mildew!

That endearing room yonder is my bathroom. The entire room is a shower, which is the norm in basic Korean living. That tiny window is the only ventilation for that room. Go ahead and imagine the mold situation in my apartment, I'll sit here and wait.

Mysterious.

So there are these faucets near the floor with some green tubes attached to them. I presume these are for cleaning the floor and other floor-like things. That is what I have used them for, the total of two times I've turned them on in the two months I've lived here.

To your right is my sink, which has my shower nozzle attached to it. I stand there and take showers. I try not to soak the door and send a puddle into my "living room". The whole showering process is inelegant and hilarious. I am still not really used to it. But at least I don't have to hunch over beneath a too-short shower head!

On a side note, Korean toothpaste tastes weird. Sincerely weird. I never thought toothpaste-taste would be a thing for me, but there you go.

Sometimes I sing to Korean strangers out of that window.

This is my kitchen! There is a sliding door to close it off from the other half of my apartment. This helps me save on air conditioning and heating! Which is cool. There is the other window in my apartment. It is large and I have set up a little homemade compost on the outside. I am so crafty.

I love to cook for myself (as some of my dear readers will know), but the sink and stove are soooooooo low for me. I think the kitchen is actually even short for my landlords, a darling elderly couple who bring me kimchi and heckle me for no reason. <3

True, it's tiny, the counter tops come up to the middle of my thigh, there is seriously tragic yellow wallpaper (YES LIKE THE FEMINIST SHORT STORY BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN), the provided bedspreads are flowery and short and pink, the bed is like a plank of wood, and it still smells faintly of a strange combination of old lady apartment and Asian grocery store, but it's the home I have, until I return to this one:

Indiana as I last saw her. Never thought I'd miss the bothersome bint. But there's more than corn, it would seem.