Back again to tell you folks a little bit about where I live. While there isn't anything too striking about my surroundings in Hampyeong (pronounced HAHM-PYONG), I'll get to the terrain and the town itself in a later post. For the time being, it's all about my living space.
On Thursday, August 25th, my co-teacher, Kim Sang-hee drove me to my apartment for the first time. I signed up for my Alien Registration Card (ARC), which basically certifies that I am who I say I am, and that I am indeed here to teach English in Jeollonamdo Province. It's pretty much my ticket to getting basic things set up, like internet, utilities, a bank account, and all that fine paperwork that comes along with it. Once we left the immigration office and Nong Hyop Bank (NH, for short...my new financial institution), we made our way out to Hampyeong. I must have picked up some wrong signals somewhere along the line, because I was certain I'd be living in Gwangju and commuting to Hampyeong, as a handful of English teachers in the county do (many Hampyeong Elementary schools are only 15 miles/25 km from Gwangju itself, so living in the city and commuting to the countryside makes sense). What I wasn't aware of is that the vast majority of my schools are further away from Gwangju, some of them just a stone's throw away from the ocean--literally. This meant that my apartment was, in fact, out in the county of Hampyeong. It was a little bit of a shock at first, and here's why. Gwangju's population is listed at somewhere around 1.5 million, making it the 6th largest city in South Korea. So it's big, but it's nowhere on the scale of, say, working in Seoul and taking the subway to work, etc. I would've loved to live in a city that size. Hampyeong County (the nearest county directly to the west of Gwangju), on the other hand, contains a whopping 44,000 people--in the entire county. So my town, which is the "county seat" of Hampyeong County, we might say (it's referred to as Hampyeong-eup in the larger Hampyeong-gun, or county), has maybe anywhere between 5,000 and 15,000 people if that. There are many smaller towns scattered throughout the county, all of which appear to have only one main street, a post office, a bank, a convenient store or two, and farms as far as the eye can see. All things considered, I'm lucky to live in Hampyeong-eup and not one of the more remote towns in which I teach English. Also, it's always great when I remember that Hampyeong is literally a 30-minute bus ride from Gwangju.
So our long day of paperwork and red tape was finally winding down, and Mrs. Kim pulled into the driveway of Nabi Villa (literal translation: "butterfly village") in Hampyeong-eup. I saw larger apartment buildings that dominate what skyline Hampyeong has to offer, and those are about 10 to 15 stories. Most Koreans in Jeollonamdo that do not live on farms live in apartments, often cramped and vertical. My apartment complex only has a few stories, and let's just say I'm lucky that I don't share this apartment with anyone else...it's pretty small. Here are a few pictures I was able to snap after a couple hours of unpacking and settling in:
Looking in through my front door. Bed and dresser on the left, desk, chair, and small TV on the right, sliding door and small sun room where my kitchen/washing equipment is located...and minus the bathroom, that's really all there is to it.
A view from the sliding door area, looking toward the entrance. Think in terms of dorm room size and you're in the right ballpark of my apartment's size.
View of my bed, which is pretty narrow but surprisingly long. Dig the purple comforter that was left here by Josh, the previous tenant.
And this is maybe the strangest part of the whole place: if you look closely, the shower head is actually mounted on the wall of my bathroom--my entire bathroom. There is no separate area to shower, and I'm forced to get the whole bathroom absolutely soaked every time I need to get clean. It all works surprisingly well and I hardly noticed it after a few weeks of use, to be honest.
Here is the first of two kitchen photos. My kitchen is a room about 4-5 feet by maybe 8 feet...no room to really move around, just a small table in the middle where I keep my rice cooker, make food, and iron clothes. These are several cabinets, a miniature sink with a dish rack, and a propane stove that I haven't used much--no oven to speak of.
Facing the opposite side of my sunroom/kitchen. Pretty decently sized fridge on the left, complete with nice toaster oven on top. My washing machine is to the right--the biggest adventure my apartment came complete with, besides the occasional GIANT centipede, was figuring out how to use the washing machine properly--everything is written in Korean, and it's all about trial and error. There's really no concept of a dryer in Korea, so my apartment came furnished with a rack on which to dry my clothes once they're washed.
My first meal at the apartment, made in the rice cooker. Eggs, toast, orange juice, and green tea.
This picture was actually taken about a week ago. I decided, with hockey season right around the corner, that it was time to represent my alma mater a bit more--and what better place to hang that Wisconsin pride than from my air conditioning unit?
These are a few photos of family and friends I keep over my desk. Nice to look at every morning and evening, reminding me where I come from, what I miss, and what I'll look forward to seeing when my experience is all said and done.
I'm trying to think of any other useful information about my apartment. Thus far, I've encountered 3 centipedes (referred to as chine, CHEE-NAY), all of which were upwards of 6+ inches and a freaky neon orange color. They bite, but as far as I can tell, I haven't come down with anything suspicious. I haven't been cooking very often at all--eating at restaurants is inexplicably cheap here, and often times it is cheaper than eating at home. I've experimented with the rice cooker, but I usually keep it simple and eat breakfasts of eggs, toast, juice and tea. I've kept some posters up to make it feel a bit more like home, besides the family pictures and Wisconsin gear--my John Coltrane, Dave Matthews Band, Cool Hand Luke, Jeremiah Johnson, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid posters have done the job so far. I keep my diploma in a nice and tacky spot on my bookshelf, along with my journals and tourist information. I've had more than enough Ethernet internet access to keep me happy, and I usually load up some internet T.V. to watch before bed every night. I'm just about to go do that, now that I mention it...
I'll make sure to blog a bit more about the actual town of Hampyeong and its surroundings in future posts, but I hope this helps paint a basic picture of my life in rural South Korea. Now that the introductory stuff is out of the way, I can start blogging about my schools and my travels. I think the next blog post will be about a series of weekend adventures--either that, or an introduction to my busy school schedule.
Thanks so much for reading, and please let me know if there's anything more you'd like to know. I'm glad I finally got this beast started, and now I can move on to blogging about more fun things here, like cute kids, crazy food, and weekend travel. All the best, love to all.
-Sam
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