In today's story about my time in Korea, I want to talk about my experience in quarantine in my apartment and everything I had delivered in my boredom. This was my first time ever having my own apartment and first time I lived alone in my entire life. Plus it was paid for by my school, so I didn't have to pay rent. I had extra money and my own space. Since I had been planning on staying long term, I was really excited to get settled, start buying furniture, and get comfortable in my own space.
In quarantine I wasn't allowed to go outside for two weeks. I knew that I wanted to spend this time relaxing, getting used to the new time zone, and decorating. I spent the first few days just watching Netflix, and then I found GMarket and Trazy. They are both foreigner-friendly apps, meaning they were in English and accepted foreign credit cards. Most Korean apps and websites only accept Korean cards and Korean phone numbers, so the standard delivery apps weren't an option for me.
I used GMarket for ordering essentials for my apartment. Since it was unfurnished except for a mattress and TV, I went crazy ordering tables, chairs, bookshelves, a mini convection oven, and a mirror. Over time I got a little overambitious and picked up an elliptical that I didn't use a single time.
I also used GMarket to order some K-Pop albums. When I saw how much cheaper the prices were, and saw that one of my favorite groups had just dropped a new album, I went a little crazy and bought all three versions of that album.
It was the first time I ever really had spending money, and I had a lot of it. Over time I ended up getting a moon lamp, cork boards, a diffuser, bean bag chairs, and even some small plants. I decorated my apartment with a tapestry and some trinkets that I brought from home along with some posters from my albums.
I used Trazy to order a prepaid SIM card to my apartment and order food. Even though I had my government rations and the food my manager bought me, two weeks is a long time and I got bored. The government rations included a large pack of ramen, cans of spam and tuna, bowls of soup and rice, a bunch of precooked rice, a giant pack of dried seaweed, packets of random meats and things, and some tissues. The first time I cooked ramen was actually in Korea. It was also my first time trying spam and canned tuna. I liked everything more than I thought I would, but I got tired of it.
I'm not sure if Trazy still has the food delivery service on their app, but at the time you could order from specific locations within a very specific time frame. With Trazy I managed to order McDonalds, Sulbing, kimbap, Kyochon chicken, and Mom's Touch. I really didn't know much about Korean food, so I wanted to try anything I could get my hands on.
The more food and furniture I ordered, the more boxes and trash I had piling up in my apartment. During quarantine I wasn't allowed outside even to take out the trash, so half of my room was just filled with boxes. I was honestly dreading taking it all out and ended up taking a few at a time over a few weeks.
Other than decorating and eating, I spent my time getting used to the quirks in my Korean apartment. Some things I had to learn immediately were the gas, heating, laundry, and the intercom. My coworker that moved in a few floors down around the same time as me sent me translations for the washer, heat controls, and intercom, which was incredibly helpful.
Many Korean apartments have an intercom with a camera. With mine, I could see who was outside my door and who was outside the building. I could press a button to open the door so they wouldn't have to use the code. I loved having this system to buzz in all of my food deliveries.
Gas and heating in Korean apartments is a very different system from anything I've seen in the U.S. For gas, you don't leave it on all of the time. There was a knob in my kitchen that I would turn to put the gas on when I wanted to cook. The same goes for hot water. You turn on your hot water from a panel on the wall right before you need to use it and leave it off the rest of the time. This probably saves a lot of money on gas and heating.
You also use the same wall unit for turning on the heat in the apartment, which in many Korean apartments is floor heat. When you turn it on, the floor heats up and warms the whole apartment. I would just turn it on long enough for the floor to feel nice and warm under my feet and then turn it off for the night. It would stay pretty comfortable in there. For air conditioning, there are wall units instead of central AC. My room cooled down fast. Overall, my monthly gas, water, and electric bills were never more than $80 total. My water bill was usually only $10 a month. Bills were left in my mailbox that I could pay at any convenience store.
The other things to get used to were having a wet room instead of a separate shower and having to hand dry my clothes. The wet room actually was really easy to get used to once I figured out to get shower shoes. The laundry was also no big deal, at least in my first apartment, because I had a dedicated room with racks hanging from the ceiling for hanging my clothes. I would leave my clothes hanging and sometimes never put them away, just taking them right on the rack and putting them on. Without that room in my second apartment, I really didn't have much space to dry my clothes.
While some people had to quarantine in a hotel room, I was so lucky to be able to quarantine in my own apartment. Even though the trip to get there was rough, it was nice being able to get comfortable in my space before starting my new job. I had two whole weeks to ground myself and make myself at home before setting off to explore, train for my job, and make new friends. That time was extremely valuable for me. Once I got out of quarantine, I was ready to
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