First Notes on Korea

Our kitchen is tiny, but neat. I really like how the sink is set up. It's a double wide sink, with a dish drainer that sets into the sink. So with the dish drainer in place, it's a single width sink, but we can take it out for big tasks, like bathing the cat. It also has a sprayer head, so no need to attempt any plumbing before bathing Hooligan.

There is no oven, which I was expecting. There is also no microwave.

We have discovered that Korean ramen is really, really good. We found one brand that  we really like, and one that looks almost the same but is a little too spicy.

My apartment does not have air-conditioning. It does have two fans, which haven't been off since we arrived. Hoolie doesn't seem to be suffering too much from the heat; I think the panting at the rest stop must have been stress as much as heat. She mostly lies around, but does regular patrols of the apartment. She really likes that my bedroom windows open into the sunroom; she thinks jumping in and out as she loops through the apartment is great :)

The laundry machine makes a long beep when it's done. If you ignore it, it'll beep again later. Intermittently, for hours (I think). I started the laundry before going to bed and groggily ignored the first several beeps.

The washing machine doesn't work if you don't turn on the water taps running to it. Duh. That's why it was beeping! It doesn't beep noticeably when a load is done. A load of laundry takes an hour to wash and then less than a day to dry when hung up. I like our laundry room. We have two drying racks. One is a folding rack that leans against the wall when we're not using it. The other is hanging from the ceiling. It lowers to chest height to get loaded up, and then can be raised back up to the ceiling to let the clothes dry. That way you can duck under the hanging clothes to move around the room, rather than having to dodge a whole rack. Hanging laundry is way more eco friendly, and cheaper. We'll see how well it works in the winter. I've heard that winter is very dry here, so the clothes will probably dry pretty well and we'll probably appreciate the extra humidity.

Haley's room was completely empty. No bed, no wardrobe. The school arranged to have a bed dropped off, as well as some missing cupboard doors in the kitchen replaced. They were supposed to arrive after 3pm. The cupboard men came at about 6, and were finished in 10 or 15 minutes. The kitchen looks very neat with the missing cupboard doors replaced. No sign of the bed though. That was kind of a problem, since it was Friday, which meant a weekend of no bed for Haley :( Haley went to sleep on a folded comforter in the sun room. I started to get ready for bed, actually had one contact in my hand, when they called in from the kitchen window. Holy cow, they make deliveries at 8pm here! They brought in the parts and put together the bed in about 5 minutes!

There was a really weird intermittent electric noise. I thought there was an electric trolly that was going by just out of sight. Nope, turns out Busan has cicadas. I'm awake early, and now know that the cicadas start humming shortly before the birds begin singing.