The One Where I Found a Place to Live in South Korea

Note: If you’re new here, you might want to check out The One Where I Got Myself to South Korea and I’m Moving to South Korea before reading this post…

When we last left our hero…she was on the verge of having to leave her fancy South Korean hotel and go OUT THERE.

She is I. I am she.

What I was REALLY on the verge of was terror. Holy Moley, I’ve moved myself halfway around the world and don’t even have a place to live. 

The “plan” (ha ha ha as if THAT’S really a thing) was to live in a goshiwon for a short time until I found The Apartment of My Dreams and then she and I would live happily ever after with our washing machine and giant window and wide open view and warm afternoon sunlight streaming in.

The Universe, however, had other plans for us.

I had INTENDED to book a goshiwon from the states. BUT. I hate phone calls. Cold calls intimidate me. I hate them I hate them I hate them it takes me FOR EVER just to work up the right amount of “I Must Do This”-ness to get myself to pick up the phone and dial a stranger’s number. So it took a LOT for me to make this one call to a goshiwon on my list. She answered, “yoboseo?” (“hello” on the phone in Korean). I said “hello?” She said “yoboseo?” I said “do you speak English?” She SHOUTED “MALHEY HANGOOKOH! MALHEY HANGOOKOH!” And hung up. She was saying SPEAK KOREAN! SPEAK KOREAN! And then didn’t give me a chance to even TRY.

Well, that was the end of the phone calls, and how I ended up in South Korea with no idea of where I was going to live.

So while I stayed in river-view heaven the first two nights, I did some googling and found a reasonably-priced hotel where I booked a room for another two nights, thinking that during that time I would surely get to some goshiwons in person and talk face-to-face with someone in the office. Face-to-face is easier cuz facial expression, hand gestures, pointing, and phone translation apps. On the phone…you’ve got nothing but verbal communication, so when that fails you’re dead in the water (an expression I have used a LOT since I’ve been here).

There was the now-accustomed-to stress when I was leaving deep-tub heaven, HOW exactly was I getting to the next hotel?? When you’re in your home/comfort zone you say meaningless things like “oh, get a taxi,” but in The Real World, that is not so simple. HOW do I get a taxi?? I know there are all sorts of Korean ride-share apps but…how? what? how? This is when I first started realizing my phone was not going to be my friend here. I couldn’t really understand any of the ride-share apps  (even on “english” language settings, they’re mostly in Korean) and I couldn’t connect to gps to locate my location…or the location I wanted to go to. Mercifully, the angels straight from heaven at hotel reception got a taxi for me and shared the address with the driver. And off we went. Nervously.

It’s definitely disconcerting not knowing where you are, not knowing where you’re going, and having to trust a total stranger that you can’t talk to that they’re going to get you to your intended destination.

One realization I had SO MANY TIMES over the first few weeks here was just how much of everyday life we take for granted. The relative ease of getting from place to place. The ability to communicate with those around you. Just simple familiarity with an area. That’s a beautiful thing. I will try to never forget what gifts those are.

Back to our story. I had street-viewed the hotel online when booking, so knew what the immediate area looked like, so when the driver eventually stopped at what he thought was the right place, I was like, no, this isn’t it…but he was already out of the car pulling my two tons of luggage out of the back and setting them on the sidewalk. He pointed down the block…and off he went.

Uhm. Okay.

So there I was on a busy street corner in Dongdaemun, Seoul, with my 3 pieces of luggage + tote+ purse…hopefully not more than a block away from my hotel. Fortunately I didn’t have to draglug my suitcases along the uneven sidewalk (note: Seoul sidewalks are THE WORST. More details in future posts) too far before spotting the 7-11 that I knew was underneath the hotel. Which, to be clear, was NOTHING like the first hotel which was sent to me straight from heaven. Not to mention that check-out time at Heaven is in the morning and check-in time at The Other Place was not until the afternoon. Oh and ps, it was raining.

Could I leave my luggage here and come back at check-in time? Sure. And they set my suitcases in the narrow entrance hallway. Can I use a restroom before I go wander around outside in the rain for 3 hours? Sure. But there’s no light. Or toilet paper. Okay. Here we go. Back to what feels more like normal life. Dreams of Heaven drifting away in wisps….

I walked around the area a bit, nothing to write home about, just a regular little town, mostly older people on the streets, a couple food places and cafes but mostly like auto part shops, that kind of vibe. I had a sandwich at a Paris Baguette, peeked into a Daiso (like…Dollar Tree meets Target) but it was so narrow and crowded…and spent over an hour in a coffee shop. Drinking an iced Americano because I didn’t know what anything else on the menu said and the barista didn’t really speak English. Black. No sugar. That’s like THE DRINK of South Korea. To me, coffee is just a conveyance for cream and sugar. So it was a struggle to get this down, but I was not going to be That American who spoiled a perfectly good Americano.

I have that feeling a lot here. Like I’m representing the United States…so I don’t want to do anything that makes people go “oh. yeah. well, that figures. She’s AMERICAN.”

When the rain stopped and the sun blasted through the clouds, I sat on a wall outside a bank for awhile, just sweating, until it was time for check-in. When I was finally able to go back it was a different person at the desk so I had to go through the whole “I don’t speak Korean and you don’t speak English but we have to make this work” process all over again…and he finally handed me a key card and returned  to his computer and I was dismissed. Elevator. Fortunately, numbers are numbers, so I was able to get to the right floor. Miraculously my key card worked.

In many Korean apartments, hotels, there’s a motion sensor light right inside the door and it lights the gokon where you take your shoes off, and it goes off after about 30 seconds. It was taking me a little time to get all 3 suitcases inside the small space and my shoes off so the light kept going off and I was left in pitch (and I mean PITCH) blackness. I tried to find a light switch using my cell phone light, but none of the switches turned the light on. They didn’t turn ANYTHING on. I couldn’t even see a window to open for some light. And it was like a SAUNA. Ugh.

I finally went back downstairs to say there was no light. He heaved a sigh of annoyance that the angels in heaven would NEVER do, and said some words that seemed to mean “it’s the switch by the door.” Which I felt like I had tried, but not wanting to be That Stupid American, I dutifully went BACK up to the dark oven and tried again. Nope. I went BACK down to his little booth and this time he just handed me another key card indicating to switch rooms. So I moved all my luggage from one room to the next (fortunately it was on the same floor), walked in and TURNED ON THE LIGHTS. Oh the joy.

Then I tried to turn on the air conditioner. Hmm. A) it’s a high-up wall-mounted dealie that I can’t reach…and B) I don’t see any controls on it anyway. At least this time I had some light so just called back down to HIM and said “aircon?” and he said “remote,” and hung up.

Ahhh…the REMOTE. Found the remote, got the air going, found the window hidden behind a sliding wooden panel (this took black-out shades to a whole new level) and finally breathed a sigh of “okay, I’m in a place with lights and aircon and a roof over my head for the next three nights. There’s food down the block and a 7-11 downstairs. I can make this work. I guess.”

It was…a little sketchy feeling but…it had two interior doors to lock at night, a bathroom with a tub (uncommon in SK) and bidet (less uncommon in SK), a mini-fridge, two beds, and internet. It had several varieties and types of bug killer and some weird hair styling products.

And I pretty much hid out there for the next 3 days. Did I get to any goshiwons? No, I did not. Did I not realize how soon I would be literally homeless in a foreign country if I didn’t take some action? I did. I did realize. But I was just….frozen. I couldn’t decide which one. The pretty one that was far from campus? The sketchy looking one that was super cheap? There were many variations on those same two scenarios.

In the end…I booked an airbnb for the 3 nights following the hotel stay. I just could not pull a trigger on anything definite!

After the first day the hotel stay was uneventful. I slept a lot, watched a lot of kdramas (REMEMBER WHY YOU CAME HERE REMEMBER WHY YOU CAME HERE), and planned and unplanned activities for myself.

I did learn about T-money cards while I was there. In Korea, public transportation and convenience store purchases are paid for with something called a T-money (T for Transportation) card. It’s just like a pre-paid debit card. You “load” the card with cash at a convenience store, then you use it to make purchases. It’s the ONLY way to make purchases – no cash or debit. Some cards work at multiple stores, some cards work at only “its” store. Like, I have a CU (“Nice to CU”) card…that I can use at CU but not at 7-11. It’s convenient in that you don’t have to carry cash around…but it’s inconvenient in that if you don’t have ACCESS to cash, you can’t load/reload your card and then you’re just dead in the water (see?).

On my seventh day in Korea, it was time for my third move (wow, some things never change). I was headed to an airbnb in a villa closer to school. A villa in Korea is not like a villa in Italy. It just means a smaller building, not more than 4-5 floors, with smaller rooms, smaller windows, one-rooms, often furnished, with small kitchen and private bath.

I had asked the airbnb host if I could possibly check in an hour early as it was a very residential area – there would be nowhere for me to go for like 4 hours, like there was at the hotel. She generously agreed. I got there at 3:00 as we’d discussed. And only when I got there did I realize all I had was a street address – no room number, no key or passcode, etc., so no way to get in. I’d thought (without really thinking at all) that she’d just Be There at 3:00 to meet me. But she was not. So once again I was standing outside in the rain with all my luggage…

not

really

knowing

what

to

do.

I tried to reach her through airbnb but I had no cell service. I stood there, trying to not cry (Not Crying is perhaps my most practiced skill since coming to South Korea).

I was just like frozen in place, really not knowing what to do next when I saw a woman hurrying down the street towards me “MI-AN-HEY MI-AN-HEY!” I’m sorry I’m sorry!

OH THE RELIEF.

It was her, she was just running behind, so sorry to keep you waiting, is this all your luggage, wow that’s a lot, here let me help you and between the two of us we manged to get it all up the one flight of stairs to the apartment. That had lights. And a window with a curtain. And a kitchen.

She then proceeded to CLEAN the SPOTLESS apartment for almost an hour, chattering away the entire time, a lovely woman, really, excited to practice her English, but I was so EXHAUSTED from the move and feelings of PANIC that I just wanted to collapse on the bed she was stripping and vacuuming.

Eventually she left me and I was finally ALONE with air conditioning and wi-fi.

I was determined to not rent yet another short-stay place. I HAD to find a more permanent temporary home. But I was also feeling the panic of my cell phone service being so unreliable. Everything was feeling overwhelmong. I finally just bit the bullet and left a post on a Korean ex-pat group on Facebook saying HELP I NEED HELP – I don’t have internet on my phone, I don’t know how to get anywhere, the subways scare me HELP. This group can be a little…cutting…so I really deliberated before posting, but in the end I really had nowhere else to turn.

And some really lovely people reached out to me with offers of help.

One: a realtor who spoke both Korean and English, who said “come to my office,” which sounds harmless enough. So, from inside the airbnb – aka The Land of Wifi, I requested an Uber and took a trip to Gangnam (yes, of the Style). Met with realtor, he was very nice but was sort of trying to talk me out of the area I wanted to live in and not showing me ANY listings for ANYTHING anywhere (why did I come all the way here, exactly??). At my very specific request he did reach out to the management office at MY APARTMENT but they could not let him show the unit, I could only see it with the building’s realtor. Fine. He suggested I find someone who spoke Korean to go with me because he could not.

And then I proceeded to be stranded in Gangnam during rush hour in the rain because my phone would not stay connected to the internet…I’d go back up to the 11th floor to the realty office to get on their wi-fi, order an uber, run back downstairs, and the request would have been dropped. I went through this cycle three times over the next hour. It was starting to get dark. I was trying hard not to cry. HOW WAS I GOING TO GET HOME? This was a HORRIBLE FEELING. No internet, no language app. I didn’t even know where a subway or bus stop WAS, let alone how to get home using either of them. I was just…stranded. And it was sh*tty 🙁

FINALLY, I got the realty office’s receptionist to use HER phone to request a car for me and eventually I was on my way home.

But that was the day I decided I wasn’t going further than walking distance again til my phone was working right.

Then, Two: one woman (from the Facebook group) took about an hour subway ride (with two transfers!) to meet me on a Saturday to look at MY APARTMENT with me because the building realtor didn’t speak English. A total stranger. She’s Korean but grew up in the states so is fluent in both languages. Wow. It still blows me away that he did that for a total stranger.

Anyway, we went to MY APARTMENT…the one I have dreamed of for almost two years…and a big reason for selecting this school in this area. Amazingly, there was one unit available, on the south side of the building like I wanted…and was about $100 less than I’d seen it for online (THANK YOU UNIVERSE). As soon as I walked in, I felt like I was home. It was exactly as it looked in pictures, was exactly what I wanted….BUT (DAMN YOU UNIVERSE) it was not a “registerable address.”

On Jan 1, 2023, some tax/rental laws changed and a lot of rental units that used to be available to foreignors, now were not. The gov’t had upped taxes on consumer rentals…so a lot of building owners were declaring their rental units as “for business only,” so they could pay less tax on them. Native Koreans can still rent them to live in. But foreignors, because we’re here on Visas, need to live at a “registerable address” so immigration can keep track of our whereabouts and make sure we’re not overstaying our visa. The net is that a lot of rental units are now off-limits to foreignors here on temporary visas. Including MY apartment.

What a Disappointment. My new friend said that sometimes people get around this by using a different address on their visa. She had let a friend of hers use her address once for this same situation, and it worked fine. She offered to let ME use her address. But…I thanked her and said I’m probably not comfortable doing something like that (do you remember how I tried to get around the multiple pet fee when I first moved to Brooklyn??).

So Depressed Bettye and New Friend walked almost 5 miles going into every 부동산 “boo-dong-san,” Korean realtor’s office. She told them what I was looking for, in what area and price range and everyone was like nope. I only got to see one other unit: a small, dark unit in a Villa right in Kondae (location good, apartment bad) for the same price as MY apartment. Guh. NOPE. We even got on the subway (and that was the day I learned I HATE Korean subway stations) and went one town up, but…nope. 

Anyway. That was a DEPRESSING DAY. I’d dreamed of that very specific apartment for SO LONG. And knowing MY UNIT was available and waiting for me right when I needed it…but I couldn’t have it on a technicality?? Almost worse than if there’d just been no available units at all.

Another issue I was having during this time was that I couldn’t find an ATM that would give me cash. And while most places are happy to take credit cards, transportation and convenience store purchases can *only* be paid for with T-money cards, that can *only* be loaded with cash. I knew my T-Money card was getting low, so I was trying to get cash to reload it…and walked to a LOT of different banks…but couldn’t get cash anywhere. Yes, my card was set to international use, and yes, I was trying ATMs with the “global” sign.

So I was feeling quite dead in the water, didn’t know how to get anywhere and very soon would run out of convenience store money, and that’s where the bulk of my food was coming from (cuz I was only going as far as I could walk). It just felt lke Korea was saying GO HOME LITTLE GIRL.

Now that I knew there was little likelihood of me finding an actual apartment in this area at this time (other students had grabbed up a lot of the available inventory before I even got there), I resigned myself to staying at a goshiwon for maybe a month while I continued looking for something else.

This was another difficult decision. WHY IS EVERY DECISION SO HARD ALL OF A SUDDEN?!? The University had about six recommended places…but they were not that close to the college, or they required a 3-month commitment, or they were very expensive for what they were. I’d found a couple other places on my own but they didn’t have the University’s stamp of approval.

WHAT TO DO WHAT TO DO.

Finally I just picked the closest one, called them, an English speaking woman answered (YAY) and said she had One Unit Left, when could I come look at it.

After some additional cell phone and ride-sharing mishaps, I made it here to Lake Home. Monica (the woman I’d spoken to on the phone) was very kind and warm…and brought me to the one available unit….she opened the door and….it was a closet. With a bed. And a bathroom. It was, literally, a 6×8 box. Whoa. I just stood on the 2×2 floor area and was like…wow. Wow this is really small. Really. Small.

I’ll take it.

I was feeling panicked and like I was running out of time. School was starting in just a few days. This was very inexpensive, Monica was very nice, the building seemed very clean and organized. So I just stepped off the cliff and moved into the tiniest living space I have ever seen.

I laugh now when I see those YouTube videos, “How I Live in a 200 sqft Apartment in NYC.” I’m like, oh, honey…you and your mansion have it easy. Try living in 48 sqft!!!

I did ask her to let me know if anything larger became available and she said maybe at the end of month (September). And I mentally prepared myself to live in a closet for the next month.

And one week later there was a knock on my door…Monica, telling me that a young man from a slightly larger unit had just been called up to the military and he would be moving out in 3 days, did I want his room. DID I WANT A BIGGER ROOM??? Oh Yes Please!!!

And two days later I moved into the room where I still am six weeks later. It felt positively palatial. It’s probably 6×12, with a slightly larger bed, a longer desk, and more cubby space. A little larger window.

PLUS, a rooftop, that I LOVE…

Oh, I forgot to say, in the end I had to commit to living here for at least three months. So looking for a “real” apartment got put on hold for the time being…which actually takes the “where will I live” pressure off me for a while and I can relax a bit knowing I have a roof over my head that is affordable and close to school.

It was quite the road to get here – six weeks from leaving my apartment in NY to finding a place to settle into in Seoul. For now.

There will be a post soon on “life in a korean goshiwon” where I’ll talk more about the space/place itself. Sorry this is SO long…I almost split it into multiple parts but then was like JUST GET THIS DONE!!! Ha.

Phew! Starting to feel a LITTLE less “not caught up.” I’ll get there!