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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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 Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:06 pm Post subject: Who here has an idyllic, hanok-in-the-countryside lifestyle? |
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Most of us live in apartments, one-rooms, dormitories and other urban settings. Does anyone here live way out in the countryside in a proper detached house with trees and a vege patch?
The only Dave's member I know of who lives like this is "Blue Lake", who lives in a beautiful hanok jip (traditional Korean style house) in the countryside near Gyeongju.
During a break between classes yesterday I went for a bike ride on a nearby island and saw some charming little villages that had me thinking "hmmm, that would be nice". Has anyone here ever been provided with or sought out a house in a village? |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:09 pm Post subject: |
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not here. in taiwan i had an old japanese era home with tatami floors and sliding doors. beautiful stuff. i always keep a keen out here and they are flattening them quicker than i can find em.
but i do know where my next location will be.  |
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Saxiif
Joined: 15 May 2003
Location: Seongnam
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:15 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't live there, but I've been out to my wife's grandmother's farm house in the countryside a lot. Not a bad place but idyllic it is not (manure smell, flies, etc.). The only bit of Korea that I've been to that I'd really describe as idyllic would be Gangwondo, love that place |
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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Saxiif wrote: |
| I don't live there, but I've been out to my wife's grandmother's farm house in the countryside a lot. Not a bad place but idyllic it is not (manure smell, flies, etc.). The only bit of Korea that I've been to that I'd really describe as idyllic would be Gangwondo, love that place |
The flies would be a bit annoying, but the manure smell I could definately handle. Just imagine all the lovely sweet potatoes you could grow with it. 
Down here around Yeosu there are some lovely places. I don't even mean the full on hanok houses, but just some of the standard, slightly rustic farmers' places like this one:
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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No, but came close last year. Walked through the rice paddies to work. I had my own house/cottage with a wall around it and a small courtyard in a town of about 16,000. Lived across the alley from the 리 community center where the old people drank and gambled morning, noon, and night. Had an outhouse (a semi-indoor bathroom, too) . . . and rats.
Some aspects of it were charming, but living in an older place like that is a lot of work. It'd have been a lot better if (1) I had owned it and could have made changes, and (2) knew anything about home improvement maintenance to figure out how to fix/improve stuff. It was drafty, pipes burst, pests got in, the 온돌 was a gas guzzler and hot water was unreliable, the semi-indoor bathroom was, well, only semi-indoors and required constant attention to keep it somewhat clean, and rats lived in the ceiling.
Like I said there are some charms, but I much prefer my semi-modern apartment, flaws and all. I have hot water, an indoor bathroom, and no rats.
edit: mine looked like the photos, although was surrounded by more houses. It was built in the 1980s, we estimate, b/c when my friend lived there as a kid there was a factory that took up the whole block. |
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shaunew
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Location: Calgary
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Why would you travel half way around the world to live like a peasant? |
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spliff
Joined: 19 Jan 2004
Location: Khon Kaen, Thailand
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:41 pm Post subject: |
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| shaunew wrote: |
| Why would you travel half way around the world to live like a peasant? |
Exactly, especially when you could be holed up in a one-room waygook apt...  |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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| For the same reason people fly 6,000 miles and bitch about not finding limes, about having no niche-market German beer, about not fitting in because they're 70 pounds overweight, about having nothing better to do than drink wine and eat cheese after work, and about not being able to find Mario Lemieux O-Pee-Chee rookie cards. |
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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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| shaunew wrote: |
| Why would you travel half way around the world to live like a peasant? |
Ironically, that's why I'm in Korea now - so that I can save a load of cash, go back to NZ and live in shack in the countryside.
I know the average modern day consumer tends to wrinkle their noses at the idea of growing ones own food and living a back to basics lifestyle, but it seems pretty attractive to me. |
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BreakfastInBed
Joined: 16 Oct 2007
Location: Gyeonggi do
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| Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Smee wrote: |
| For the same reason people fly 6,000 miles and bitch about not finding limes, about having no niche-market German beer, about not fitting in because they're 70 pounds overweight, about having nothing better to do than drink wine and eat cheese after work, and about not being able to find Mario Lemieux O-Pee-Chee rookie cards. |
The limes totally caught me off guard. It is the single most inconsequential thing that has irritated me the most. I'm pretty happy otherwise and prefer a simple lifestyle. Went to some islands two summers ago, one had a school, lots of quaint homes. That's been a recurring daydream for me. |
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captain kirk
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:12 am Post subject: |
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I do. They showed me a couple of one rooms and I said no. I said it can be dirty, country, buggy, dilapidated, but BIG and within 20km of the school.
The Principal had a small country house, then. It was empty and he didn't mind letting me live there. It meant he would get the 450,000 a month from the schoolboard alloted to house me. Good deal for him!
It's 13km from the public school. I get in by motorbike, no problem. The neighbour has 60 goats, three cows, chickens. The house has a courtyard central. It's a traditional farmer's house. It's half way up a mountain. Seven houses similiar to this on the mountainside, terraced a bit with some small fields. All the neighbours are elderly.
A hamlet of twenty houses is down below in the valley bottom. The valley sides are mostly forested. It's quiet all the time. Very rarely do vehicles
drive into the valley on the one road going thru.
Sure beats a one-room. The teacher who selected the one-rooms still thinks that was a better choice. She thinks the mountainside, small country house is windswept (true^^), cold, worn, dirty, isolated but that's the charm of it IMO. Haven't seen Yeti yet^^ |
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poet13
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
Location: Just over there....throwing lemons.
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| Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:16 am Post subject: |
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captain kirk.....I am very very jealous right now. Sounds like a great location.
I want to get my own place like that here and have chickens and ducks running around the yard and goats out back. |
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OculisOrbis
Joined: 17 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:17 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| For the same reason people fly 6,000 miles and bitch about not finding limes, about having no niche-market German beer, about not fitting in because they're 70 pounds overweight, about having nothing better to do than drink wine and eat cheese after work, and about not being able to find Mario Lemieux O-Pee-Chee rookie cards. |
I didn't realize there was such a demand here for that particular card. I lost interest in that hobby when I was 14 so I'm willing to put up for sale a near-mint Mario rookie OPC card if it will to reduce someone's stress levels. Make me an offer. |
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captain kirk
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:24 am Post subject: |
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| poet13 wrote: |
captain kirk.....I am very very jealous right now. Sounds like a great location.
I want to get my own place like that here and have chickens and ducks running around the yard and goats out back. |
The weird thing about it is I just had to tell them that rural was OK! It could be within 20km of the school, I said. A country/farmer house, ok! They otherwise wouldn't have believed I'd want to live in such a place. I like it a lot of course, chills me right out. Next school I'll try it again, say, 'country house ok!'. See if it works again!^^ |
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Chamchiman
Joined: 24 Apr 2006
Location: Digging the Grave
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| Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:26 am Post subject: |
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| captain kirk wrote: |
| The weird thing about it is I just had to tell them that rural was OK! It could be within 20km of the school, I said. A country/farmer house, ok! They otherwise wouldn't have believed I'd want to live in such a place. I like it a lot of course, chills me right out. Next school I'll try it again, say, 'country house ok!'. See if it works again!^^ |
Sounds nice indeed. Just curious...which province are you in? |
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