Since Chris and I weren’t married, we didn’t end up getting accommodation together. However, we were pretty lucky to be only 5 minutes down the road from each other (and it’s pretty much only 1 road too 🙂 ).

Chris’ Apartment: 

Firstly. Chris’ building name is ‘Melbourne’. No joke. Here’s proof:

Chris is on the F floor – which in our world is the 4th floor. The number 4 here, like in much of Asia, is considered extremely unlucky so instead of the number 4 on the lift keypad, there is an F!

It’s a one-room studio that is on the smaller side of things, but quite liveable. The internet and the cable TV were already set up and come part of the package for the building so that was a massive bonus! We have friends that have to wait until their alien registration cards (ARCs) arrive before they can set it up (we’re expecting our cards around the 21st of March but it depends on when you went to immigration- a story for another time).

We also have a pretty flash rice cooker which will probably take the year to figure out how to use.

The other awesome feature is the underfloor heating (called an ondol) which we are still trying to perfect the right temps on the right settings. They also control the heating for the shower so there are a few settings to play with.

The big downfall is the tiny bathroom which includes a shower over the sink. It is impossible to shower without wetting every damn thing in the bathroom!!

Sarah’s Apartment:

So just 5 minutes walk up the road and the tiny hill is Sarah’s apartment. On the 1st floor, my studio is slightly larger than Chris’ and has a waaaay better bathroom! Yay for a normal-ish shower 😀 It’s still strange not to have a screen or shower curtains, but it works fairly well.

We have almost all the same furniture as it’s actually a part of the GEPIK contract as to what we should have so once we have our ARC cards, then the internet can be set up for both apartments and we can switch it up a bit more.

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So the main differences are there is no internet, cable TV and the bed is a tad smaller.

So at this stage, it looks like we’ll be showering at mine and internet-ing and therefore living more at Chris’ place.