Korean Job Discussion Forums

[JongnoGuru]

I've run nearly the whole gamut here.

Apartments / Villas
Had an apartment all to myself a few times. Also shared an apartment with one person, and then another with two people. Even had to share a room with someone (not a gf -- a K-taxi driver! ) in an apartment once.

Officetels
Yep, stayed in one of those, too. On my own, though. Nice. 21 pyong.

Hotels / Yogwans
The longest I've stayed in a yogwan was a month & a half, waiting for repairs to finish on a place I was moving into. Have also stayed at nice hotels for a week at a time on the client's dime.

Houses
Okay, I've done in every conceivable configuration here. I once lived in one room of a Korean family's house (about which I could write 100 threads). I also had one floor in a two-story house, which I shared for a while and then had all to myself. Then there was the infamous roof-top unit... of which the less said the better. (still have nightmares about that place) Finally, I've had a whole house to myself.


Here are the two I've never done and have absolutely no regrets for it.

Goshiwons
These places certainly did exist when (and of course long, long, long before) I got here, but I'm telling you, they were nowhere near the "poor man's alternative to a studio apartment" that you see all over the city, like they are now. Truly, these were almost exclusively for students preparing to take the goshi, not for the average student, ESL teacher or anybody else. I don't have any Korean friends who ever considered living in one, not even those who DID take the goshi.

Youth Hostels / Guesthouses
These didn't exist in Korea until last Thursday afternoon, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, there are/were some infamous "inns" around Gwanghwamoon that have been there since ever, and their names were never a great deal more than epithets for police raids and KBS news exposes of "Western hippy druggy culture" among Koreans and most ex-pats I knew.

[PolyChronic Time Girl]

My last job I worked at a public school so they only had school dormitory...my lesson....never take a school dormitory! They have rules and you can't even have your boyfriend/girlfriend past 9pm over since there are guards to check. There were visiting hours(like only 3 hours in one day..max) for your guests and they must "sign in" at the front gate so the guard can check how many hours that guest has stayed with you and will bang on your door if they don't leave by the appointed hour (no joke) And no overnight guests, period...not even if they were of the same sex. A shared laundary room that was always too busy...and the dorm was on a top of hill away from civilization and not even a little supermarket nearby. I had to sneak my boyfriend out if he stayed out later than "curfew".....I can't believe they treat adults my age this way
Now I have my little box apartment and it never looked so better

[Daechidong Waygookin]

Officetel. 23 floor building, 4 elevators, guards, a coffee shop in the lobby, marble flooring. Its sweet.

My place is 17 pyeong with hard wood flooring, track lighting, fridge mounted in the wall, great view.

[Zyzyfer]

[schwa]

My place is a bit hard to categorize but I think "house" is closest. 3-story building, one unit per floor, on a quiet sidestreet among single-family dwellings.

I'm on the ground floor & I really like the ease of just stepping out on the street. Big -- 31 pyeong -- I enjoy the spaciousness. I can see Seorak Mountain from my livingroom window, the East Sea from my bedroom.

Solid construction -- I can crank my music at all hours & never disturb the upstairs neighbors (my landlords -- nice folks), & likewise I never hear them. Nice details throughout -- cove ceilings, natural wood doors & trim, double-glazed windows, all modern conveniences. I put down 10 million cheonsae & my work picks up the 300k wolsae.

Halfway through my 3rd year in this place & almost completely content. But no yard! My next dwelling will have a courtyard & a bit of gardenable earth, without fail.

[peppermint]

I live in a bigggish apartment on the top floor of a villa. Two bedrooms, decent view, and the room mate that came with, has since moved on leaving the whole place for me!

[HamuHamu]

I voted carboard box, although I think by Korean terms, it's considered a "villa." My school calls it a "studio apartment."

I think I'd rather have the cardboard box. At least then I could pick it up and move it elsewhere when the lardarse above me starts thumping around at all hours of the night, or when the bimbo who lives next to me comes home from work at 5:30 am every weekday and can't find her keys bringing on the necessity to dump her monstrous "purse" all over the hallway floor and root around while her dog yips inside the door, and when the women who live on all floors above me STOMP STOMP STOMP up the cement stairs to the fifth floor regardless of what time it is.

Ahhh yes, a cardboard box. How I dream of it. I think it would probably be bigger, too....

[Homer]

We (wife and I) have a nice 4 bedroom appartment.

[just because]

I live in a 22 pyeong apartment but I do share this.

I think my new contract I'm taking a step down.

[The Bobster]

I've always insisted on private apartments - even the tiniest vila is preferable to sharing a place with people you don't know, and might end up hating. Only one time I broke this rule, it was a HUGE 78-pyong 4 bedroom place, top floor of a brand-new highrise that was shared between 3 of us, and the other two were waaaay at the other end of the apt from me - but even twice as much floorspace would not have been enough once the personality clashes set in.

It was a cold place in the middle of July ...

I'd share a place if it was with someone I already knew and already liked, but even then I'd be nervous about messing up a friendship with the daily pains of those small personal idiosyncracies that start to get on people's nerves - and the problem is not just other people, as I know my own failings and how my own personal habits can annoy.

[Tiger Beer]

My last job I lived in an oficetel. I really liked that.

Single apartments are best though.

[tzechuk]

We live in a flat in a villa - we have the whole floor to ourselves, about 50 pyong. My husband is Korean though, so it's not like I am here alone or anything.

[JongnoGuru]

Thank you all for participating.

I'd hoped to get at least 100 responses to this poll, but I think the results as they now stand with just 48 votes will probably be the same however many people participate.

I'm a bit surprised to note that as many as 80% of you live in apartments/villas or officetels. This figure would have been dramatically lower when I came to Korea. First, because there were no officetels and far fewer "villas" then, but also because ex-pats generally lived in (parts of) houses. In fact, if you lived in the "countryside" (anywhere that wasn't Seoul) there simply weren't that many apartments around.

Living in apartments/villas/officetels as you do, most of you will never have experienced the tenant/landlord dramas (many good, most bad) that those of us who've been here a while had to contend with, year in and year out. Were I to ever write my memoirs (don't worry -- I won't) of my time spent in Korea, it's inconceivable that an entire chapter wouldn't be devoted to that subject. When you live above, beneath or beside them, Korean landlords, landladies and their families aren't people you just deal with once every two years when you recontract your lease -- they are constant, daily presences and often irritants in your life.

When all of you complain about evil/psychotic employers, bad salaries, problems at the office, freaky waygook co-workers, etc. ... well, just be damned thankful that most of your problems are confined to the workplace. Many of us who've been here long enough have serious "war wounds" from the landlord/tenant front that you'll only ever hear about in stories. You really do have so much to be grateful for on this score.

[SuperHero]

24 pyoung apartment 14th floor.

But in the past I lived in a ha-suk, a sub-basement, and the fifth floor of a 5 floor walkup

[JongnoGuru]

SuperHero, what made you dredge up this thread? Did you move recently? And do you mean "sub-basement" or ban-jiha? I stayed in one of the latter very briefly. It was the winter, and every day would be: wake up, turn on gas heater, training it on water pipes, and within half an hour they'd unfreeze and I'd be able to wash my face and brush my teeth.