Life in a Korean Apartment

Living Alone in Seoul

I was so excited to move into my apartment in Seoul- my first taste of life in a Korean apartment! It would be my first time living completely alone and I just wanted to get settled in my own space after a whirlwind first week in a new country. I was a little suspicious of what I would be moving into, since I had asked the school multiple times for photographs of the apartment before I even left England, and each time my request had been ignored- Yes, this is a red flag to look out for and be aware of when considering your contract options on teaching in South Korea. (I will dedicate a post to that subject at a later date!) I was right to be suspicious, even a healthy amount of caution could not have prepared me for the moment I would lay my eyes on what I would be spending the next year living in!

Jamming Doors & Flooding Floors in a Cupboard Sized ‘Apartment’

I can’t tell you the exact dimensions, all I can say is I’m fairly sure most of you reading this have a cupboard in your house that is larger than my entire apartment was. For context, my small fridge door could not open all the way because it hit my bed upon doing so! One of the most frustrating things about living in this small space was having to put up with the sound of the fridge right next to my head every night. In sticking with this theme, my bathroom door also could not open fully as it hit the sink, so you had to shimmy and slide yourself around it to get in and out! Speaking of which, most Korean bathrooms do not have showers or baths built in. There is a toilet and a sink, and there is a shower head attached via the sink or just attached to the wall which you use to shower. The water from that just goes all over the bathroom and the floor, and drains out from there, similar to a wet room (sometimes it can build up and start to flood a little – not ideal!) There were also many times when I first began living there that I would go to wash my hands and forget the shower was attached and end up soaked in all my clothes!

For storage I had one long cupboard to store clothes in, a few overhead cupboards for kitchen items, and I was generously left with a set of drawers from the previous teacher. For cooking I had one touch screen stove top and no counter space for food prep. The stove top was basically like a fancy camping stove. Underneath that I had a washing machine, with all instructions in Korean of course, I just hoped for the best every time I put a load in and pressed buttons- most of the time it turned out fine!

Getting on with it Anyway

It was a difficult scene to accept, but what could I do? I had accepted my contract which included this as the ‘provided housing’ in place of a higher salary (you have different contract options when applying for teaching positions in SK). In hindsight, I should have contested it. The apartment arrangements technically violated the contract I had signed, which stated I would be provided with certain items that were not there. However, I was overwhelmed by the big life thing I had just done. I was new in a foreign country with no one to turn to for advice, and seemingly the other teachers had accepted this fate without complaint. So I supposed I had better do so too! 

Finding the Good & Living Minimal

I won’t lie and say I enjoyed living in it. It was really, really difficult and certainly tested my sanity once or twice! But, it did bring me some good. I never wanted to spend too much time there, therefore it forced me to go out exploring a lot and being sociable. I didn’t have spare space to keep a lot of material things, so I didn’t buy toooo many clothes or random items that first year (and I love buying clothes and random items!) It had to be kept tidy otherwise it would be chaos in there which meant my space was always organised. But, the best thing of all from the experience of living there; I knew it could never get much worse than that, and anywhere I lived afterwards would feel like an improvement.

Underfloor Heating; No bed? No problem!

Let’s get into some more positive things about life in my little shoebox/apartment! I absolutely love that Korean homes are heated using underfloor heating. It makes SO much more sense than radiators (which we use to heat our homes in England- useless, outdated, and ugly!) Also, way nicer than the hot air that blows suffocatingly out of the American heating systems! My mattress was on the floor instead of on a bed- since my bed had crashed to floor one evening when I had three friends over sitting on it and drinking tea, oh well! This meant that I was always nice and toasty from the underfloor heating in those harsh winter months at bedtime!

Rooftop Views

My favourite thing about living in that apartment was having access to the roof. Korean buildings have flat roofs that are designed for people to use for socialising and relaxing because there are not many ground floor, outdoor spaces and many people live in apartment buildings instead of Western style homes with gardens. Some businesses are even on top of roof buildings, such as a cafes and football/soccer pitches! I spent a lot of time up there and I would use it to hang dry my laundry too. Korean people are very trustworthy and no one will steal your things. Many people in the building would leave their personal items outside their doors and they would not be touched. The safety of Korea is one of the most amazing aspects of life there. 

No door keys, an accidental break in & a kind stranger!

Another thing I loved about my apartment, and each one after that, was that I didn’t need a key! Each door has a pin pad and you enter and secure your home with a number code. It was great never having to keep track of a key and if you need a friend to grab something for you, or vice versa (me and my girlfriends did this a lot) you can just let them know your code! Although, during my first week there I did accidentally end up trying to break into someone else’s apartment!! Oops!!! I feel terrible for whoever might have been sitting in their room scared of me outside their door, beeping the buttons and yanking the handle -all whilst in floods of tears! I was feeling very flustered as I had just returned from my medical exam, which is something all foreigners have to do within a few days of arriving in the country. My phone was about to die, I desperately needed to wee, and it was the weekend so I couldn’t head to the school for help! I was very confused and distressed by the situation! Luckily, a kind man came out of his apartment after hearing all my commotion and spent a long time using a translator app to help me. He finally realised this silly foreigner was in the entirely wrong building and walked me to the correct one! That’s just one of many stories of the kindness I was given by complete strangers in Korea. 

– I digress, I hope you have enjoyed reading a bit about my experience of life in a Korean apartment and my first impressions of adjusting to Korean style living, let me know in the comments if you have any questions or if anything shocked you!