Ah, I’m sitting on the balcony of our new home (well, temporary home, but you get my drift), sipping a cold one, and enjoying re-runs of MacGyver from Finnish TV. Does life get much better? Technically, I’m also enjoying the view, but since it’s dark, I can’t verify that what I saw in the morning is still there, but the picture below shows the view how it was this morning, our first morning here.
Seoul in the morning
Yes, we left the safety of the in-laws, and moved into an empty apartment at the university guest house. Well, empty is technically not true, since there is a fridge with a freezer, a bed with a mattress, table in the kitchen (sort of part of the fixed kitchen, so not sure if that counts as separate furniture), 3 chairs in the kitchen, and one chair in the little office corner. There’s tons of storage space though, making this probably the first place I’ve lived in where I have more storage space than stuff. Obviously, lack of stuff helps quite a lot in making that impression. 🙂
Today has been the re-boot day. As anyone who’s moved to foreign countries, the beginning is like putting your life together from scratch, piece by piece, starting with the eternal questions, such as, what brand of toilet paper is good? Globalization has made this much less exciting, at least when moving within Europe, but coming to Korea is a lot bigger jump into the unknown. I do know the alphabet and basics of the language, but that’s not really enough. Lucky for me, I have a native live-in interpreter whose interests in getting the life into order align with mine.
Getting the basics together involved shopping for home appliances (microwave, rice cooker, hair dryer, iron and ironing board), then getting something to fill the empty fridge. Because the contents of the fridge also need to provide adequate nourishment for the Kids, beer is probably not the best way to fill it, tempting though it might be (and my doctor would also disagree). The in-laws have helped a lot, by giving us frying pans, utensils, etc. to get bootstrapped, so that meant a little less shopping for us. There is a reasonable market at Nakseongdae station, about 5 minutes by bus from here and as usual in Korea, they also deliver your purchases (at no extra cost, but assuming a minimum purchase of 20,000 KRW). The home appliance shop obviously also offered delivery so out of the 5 things we bought, 2 are still on their way.
Tomorrow is then the big day when everything finally starts. My daughter starts her kindergarten and I go to the office to meet my collaborators, so I should make sure I get enough sleep. But before that, one more beer and one more MacGyver. 🙂