INTERSTICE part II: Temporary Apartment

My temporary apartment was kind of cool. It was spacious, even more spacious than my older place. At this point you can understand I was quite curious as to how my then-soon-forthcoming apartment would compare size-wise.

But anyway, this building's layout was interesting- every apartment, on the same wall as the door to the hallway, had a window you can open; thankfully it had iron bars too, to prevent "bad guys" from doing "bad things." Not that this is a huge issue though, since the crime rate is miniscule compared to other countries I've lived in. Hem hem, as Miss Dolores C. Umbridge would say.

So anyway if you open the window, your room's now opened to the outer hall. Some random people leave theirs open, which is nice. Cause when you walk through the halls, and see this room and that room with their window open, it just gives the place a more open community feel, kinda like in a college dormitory. I like it.

In fact, if I go back home to the US and become a Hall Director at a college (likely), then I will market the idea for this kind of window to be installed into the college dorms. It just makes the whole living environment seem more open, friendly and communal, which would be a constructive force for little freshman dummies trying to make friends in the "new environment they're adjusting to." Plus, me being the one to bring the college the idea, maybe they'll build a statue of me so future generations can appreciate my positive influence on promoting social growth. Which I'm all about (the statue and the social growth).

Now, the bathroom in this apartment was hella small. But believe me, I really don't mind small spaces in general. You should have seen my RA room my junior year of college. That year for some reason they gave me, the humble co-leader of the floor (a dorm floor co-led by another certain currently-Korea-inhabiting Crony DiTraglia Civilian), a room smaller than almost all of the freshman residents I held sovereignty over. Isn't that fucked up? Yeah, it is. But my point is that I didn't mind the smallness. Really.

But I was in for a surprise when I investigated this bathroom. Here's a photo:

So here you see the toilet, mirror and shower. But on either side, at the direct right and left edges of the frame of this picture, are walls.

So it's small. But it is, as of yet in the timeframe of this bloggitive narrative, missing an essential component to a bathroom.

Where is the door to the shower?

But actually, nothing is missing. For you see, the entirety of the picture you see here is, also, the shower. Yeah. See that white hose, which hooks around back into the sink? That's the showerhead. So on the sink, theres a little knob you press in or pull out. When you do, the water is diverted from the sink faucet, and comes out of that shower nozzle instead.

So you get into the bathroom, shut the door, and there you are in the shower, complete with toilet, sink, and all your hygenic supplies at your immediate disposal.

It was funny, because the first time I took a shower here I had to manually maneuver the showerhead all over my body to spray/rinse, like they do in old 1930s cartoons with a shower cap or whatever. It was only later when I humbly realized there was a little slot up on the wall that you can insert the showerhead into. This made the water shoot out from a stationary position, therefore freeing both of your hands.

Of course in this mode, the water splashes off you more, which gets the sink and toilet wetter. But by this point, if one is taking a shower and cares about this kind of thing, said person is in the wrong country.

After I got home from the long first day of training, I went to the bathroom with the intention of taking my contact lenses out. I turned on the faucet, and was greeted with a cold-ass burst of water on my left shoulder. And I was still in my work clothes!! I had left the switch on shower mode and had left the showerhead up on its notch near the top, where it remained since my previous shower session, pointed directly at my humble self.

So yeah, this kind of shower is a Korean thing and I've encountered variants of it in the past. For example, I stayed in a hotel place on a work trip and it had a more traditional shower, except that it did not have a shower curtain (intentionally). Apparently, even with a traditional shower shape, Koreans like to take showers and have water splash everyfuckingwhere, over stuff that's not directly involved with the shower!

Also, even my old apartment's shower, while it did have a glass 'stall' partition, there was no barrier on the ground to prevent the water from flowing onto the rest of the bathroom's floor.

But all of these kinds of bathrooms have drains in the appropriate places, so there's never water just chillen where it shouldn't for extended periods of time. I think someone told me that all this free-roaming water tomfoolery's purpose is to make a dent, so to speak, in the amount of time one needs to spend cleaning the floor in a traditional manner. The entire-bathroom-is-also-the-shower model optimizes this feature.

But ultimately, does everything getting wet all the damn time outweigh said convenience? Koreans would say no. I think I would too.

Changdeokgung Palace

I was fortunate enough to take a tour of what is called the Changdeokchung Palace, located north of the river that runs through Seoul. The word ‘Palace’ in this context does not refer to one specific building, but rather to a series of many across an expansive tract of property. The royal families/dynasties throughout Korean history lived at this site continuously until the last Queen died there in 1989. Now, the country employs a democratically-run system of presidential elections. The first president was elected in 1987, right before the nation’s capital, Seoul, hosted the Olympics in 1988.




















This first picture I took shows Injeongjeon, the main palatial throne hall. This was the most important site of major state affairs. The coronation of new kings of Korea occurred here, as well as the ceremonious reception of important foreign diplomats. If you look at the raised walkway(s) in the center of this courtyard, you will notice that there are actually three leveled paths. These were used for introductory processions for those kinds of ceremonies. The middle walkway is the highest, upon which the King, Queen, and other highest nobles walked upon. You NEVER walked on that highest tier unless you were large and in charge. The other two walkways on either side of that middle one are a bit lower, and were for all the important nobles of authority. Once the tour guide explained this, she enthusiastically invited us to proceed through the courtyard on the center path. I was a little hesitant, questioning my worthiness, and almost wasn’t going to, but the person I was with made me.

You will also notice, on either side of the three walkways, what appears to be a long stretch of gravestones. However, engraved on those stones are names of people and their ranks. During processions, the respective person stood by their stone. They begin at the highest rank nearest to the temple and work their way back.

If you look closely on the left and right edges of the top layer roof, you can see notches on top that extend to the tips. I believe there are nine. These are small gargoyle statues, put there to ward off demon sprits from the area of the building and palace. There is good luck and karma to be had based on the number of these defender-gargoyles placed on a palace roof. You ALWAYS put an odd number on each side the roof, NEVER even. Even more particularly, you either had to put 3, 5, 7, 9, or 11. I think this one has nine. The number chosen often reflects how high-ranking in society the affairs of that building are.

The building itself bears the appearance of a two story building. However, inner inspection reveals it to be a one story palace with a luxurious ceiling. You can see a picture of the chamber within below, with the throne and the like.


We eventually proceeded to what is called the “Secret Garden(s),” which were places of repose and meditation for the royal family and company. There is a pond in the middle, with fish, and smaller huts for relaxation around it, complete with gardens with many different types of plants and bushes. I could imagine myself here reading for hours, as a prince in a royal dynasty or whatever.

You can also see here, in the picture below, a large set of stairs leading up to a building with a royal library and reading room, which overlooks that secret garden pond. You can see the three doorways near the foot of the stairs. The rules about rank that I mentioned on the three-leveled walkway apply to the passing through of those doorways as well.

We were also shown the nightly resting places of the King and Queen, who both always slept under different roofs. This is in accordance with Confucianism, which also decreed that the woman never left her separate chamber to go see her husband. The King, however, could leave his hold to go see his wife, since, under that philosophy, men were supposed to fulfill the active, dominant role and female the passive. But what if the Beatles made a surprise one-time appearance on Ed Sullivan, and only the wife happened to catch it? Too bad. She couldn’t tell the Mr.; he’d just have to wait 50 years to catch it on YouTube.

Finally, here is a picture of our tour guide. Every day, there are about ten or fifteen tours that you can join with a tour guide speaking in Korean, about three or four in English, and two in Japanese. Before the tour began she moseyed through the crowd, inquiring where the tour participants’ home countries were. I was the only one from the U.S.! There was a large group of tourists from Canada, who came on a bus as part of some larger thing and all wore tags around their necks that had that red leaf or whatever from the Canadian Flag. There were also a few people from Hungary. The tour guide was interesting. She wore a headset which connected to a box-speaker on her belt to amplify her voice. Most of the words she said were pronounced in the sort of manner in which you would say certain syllables extremely meticulously, like Chris Tucker trying to get his message across to Jackie Chan when they meet at the airport at the beginning of Rush Hour. And also, you HAVE to love the parasol. My love for parasols was created by my initial encounter with them in the game Animal Crossing. One time, senior year I went for a random walk alone on the PC campus at night, and it wasn’t raining either, but I brought an umbrella. For a goof. I encountered none other than Kennedy King, who asked, “What’s with the umbrella?” I answered, it’s actually a parasol. He then emoted a look of comprehension and approval, nodded his head, and said something along the lines of, “Bad-ass.”

iCarly episode: iHeart Mini Stop

A prominent convenience store in America is 7/11, and Korea actually does have a number of them, too. But the convenience store industry, at least from what I have observed in Seoul, is dominated by two companies. They pretty much have the exact same kind of store.

The first is “Mini Stop.” They are all over the place. You can’t walk two blocks (in any direction) without going past one. I think Mini-Stop is a brilliant and hilarious name. First of all, they really are mini. Each one has three aisles, similar to a place like PC Mart. But, the aisles are short in height- they reach about my shoulders, and I’m not a tall person. They are also short in length, the average person could take about three or four steps and get from one end to the other. In general, the entire store is packed in tightly, yet you don’t feel claustrophobic when you walk within. It’s efficient.

There is a “Mini Stop” (again, isn’t that such a great and cute name?) attached to the lobby of the building I live in, which is very nice. There are two entrances to the lobby: you could walk into the mart and swipe your card into the building from that side door, or just go through the front door. More to come on the amazingness of my building in a future update.

The main competitor for Mini Stop is “Family Mart.” You can find these littered about the city just as often as the Mini Stop, if not a little bit more. I find the name Family Mart funny too, because it suggests the imagery that a large, loving family of five should take a trip down to the ‘Mart to pick up snacks/convenience store items for the week…with an aura of wholesome excitement in the air. What’s funny about this hypothetical scenario is that if a family of a mere five people all went into one Family Mart, it would be noticeably and inconveniently crowded for other customers.

The clerks that work the register at continence stores are very quick-acting. When you give your things to be scanned they do so very fast. The first time I bought a couple of items from that store I was still in the process of orienting myself with the value of the Korean Currency (won, also to be covered in more detail in a future post). I was shifting through my wallet and sort of reaching for a 10,000 won bill (which is green), not really knowing what to pay with. He saw my 5,000 won bill (blue) and imperatively pointed at it, uttering a brief remark (in Korean) that it was the bill he wanted.

Once I gave it to him and he gave me my change, our transaction was complete. In Korea once you have finished doing business in this manner, the employee concludes the affair with a social-ritualistic bow. You might envision a drawn-out, almost ninety degree bow, like in movies, i.e. when Morpheus fights Neo in the training program (STOP TRYING TO HIT ME AND HIT ME!!!). But, the bows from a convenience store clerk, in fitting with the quick-acting vibe of Seoul, bow only a little, and very quickly, but never (at least in my experience in this area thus far) without at least some sort of smile to convey approval and good wishes.