Our Korean Abode

Our accommodations here in Korea are quite nice... well, really nice. More than I had hoped for by far. This building is BRAND new. We are the first to live here. All the appliances still have their stickers on them. I guess that's good and bad. Good, cause it's nice to have new things, bad because when we leave, they'll know that all dings and scratches were our doing. Oh well. I may have mentioned this before, but we are on the 17th floor. Our building is maybe about a quarter full. I don't think we have anyone else living on our floor yet. I have to admit, I haven't tried to bring cookies over. I'm a little gun shy about my Korean language skills (or lack thereof). The apartment is very modern, all stone and wood... kinda sterile feeling and echoey. It's going to be a rough deal for Lincoln to learn to walk in this place. He's already hit his head a face twenty million times on the stone coffee table and floors. I'm surprised he hasn't given himself a concussion yet. I'm also surprised that someone hasn't called us in to the Korean Child Protection Services. I hope I can figure out how to baby proof this place. I just don't know where to buy stuff like baby gates etc. We did find some foam tiles for his bedroom so it is fairly safe in there.

They are many neat features in our apartment. Some of the lights are motion activated, you can open the front door by pushing a button in the family room, you can call the elevator as you are putting your coat and shoes on, the floors are heated (which is my favorite feature cause the clothes I leave on the floor are warm when I put them on), there is a huge built in freezer in addition to the side by side, and the toilet in our bathroom has heated seats and is also a bidet although I have yet to try it out (but of course Matt has).

So, my house tour video was gonna be posted here but it won't load for whatever reason. I'll try again later. Anyway, the apartment has some quirky details I forgot to mention. First, the dining room table has flowers made of glitter inlaid into the stone.

And, the dining room chairs are covered in a soft pink crocodile skin. SO SWEET!

If you ever come to visit, you'll have to be very careful about pushing buttons around here (not mine... the ones on the walls). The first day I was at home by myself with Lincoln, I noticed there was a little TV in the kitchen. Lincoln was napping, and I didn't have much to do so I thought, "Cool, let's see what Korean TV is like." I can't really read Korean yet so I had to guess which one was the power button. Which one would you guess?:

WRONG!!! It is NOT the one outlined in red. That would be an emergency button. The alarms sounded, my heart was racing, imaging that everyone was going to have to evacuate the building and I'd have to try and explain myself in my best sign language (I've gotten really good at charades since we've been here). I ran over to the security system screen in the family room. I think it probably said something like "Is this really an emergency?" and then there were two touchscreen options. I said a little prayer and picked the one on the right... SAVED!!!! The alarms stopped. To my surprise and delight, Lincoln slept through the whole thing.

Tuesday evening as we were getting into bed, Matt and I were reflecting on how funny it was that I set the alarm off as well as all the other funny things that have happened (which I will list in a future post) as a result of us not being able to speak/read Korean. Matt told me that one of his co-workers wives did the exact same thing. I didn't feel so dumb after hearing that. As we were talking, I mentioned to Matt that we sure had a lot of controllers on our bedroom wall. Matt agreed and walked over to the wall to see what they were all for. There was one with just a single button. Matt pushed it and the alarms blared once again. He ran to the screen in the family room. I said, "THE ONE ON THE RIGHT! HIT THE ONE ON THE RIGHT!!". He hit the one on the right and... silence. We laughed ourselves silly. Is EVERY button in this house an emergency button???

Anyway, long story short, (cause I already said the long story long) we like our new place. Come visit us!!! You saw your bed and bathroom. Looks great, eh?