I live in Daejeon. I've lived here before, but I'm in a much different part of town than before. Before I was in the northeast part of town, this year I'm in the northwest. From my apartment building I can see the Daejeon World Cup Stadium, which was built for the 2002 World Cup which was shared by South Korea and Japan. The stadium was the site of a controversial 2002 World Cup match between South Korea and Italy in which dubious refereeing helped South Korea to victory and into the quarterfinals. Now, it's primary use seems to be to house a bowling alley. Seriously, I walked past it the other day and saw a sign in Korean that said "Daejeon World Cup Stadium Bowling Alley."
The area I live in seems to be quite affluent. The reason I think this to be the case is that within my immediate vicinity there are things I've never seen in Korea before: houses. See, everyone over here lives in these massive apartment buildings, scores of which can be seen at anytime simply by looking up. So, when I was strolling through my area shortly after moving in, I had to do a double-take. A few houses even have solar panels on the roof.
Unfortunately I didn't get a house to live in. I got an apartment with paper thin walls, underneath the loudest damn Korean in the country. It's bad enough that there's a couple of kids who can get a bit loud as they set off to school, but if I manage to sleep through that at 7am, the guy above me is certain to make sure I don't sleep past 8. This guy STOMPS around. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that each step sounds like he's jumping up and down trying to make as much noise as possible. The loudest he gets is when he walks down the stairs from his floor to mine. It's what I wake up to every morning. One of these days, and this is inevitable, I'm going to stumble out my door half naked and attempt to teach him how to descend a flight of stairs like a sensible and conscientious human being.
Another new thing about this year is that I have access to a subway. Gwangju doesn't have one, and my first year here I didn't live near any stations. Now I live right outside of the World Cup station subway stop. It consists of only one line, which doesn't even stretch across the entirety of the city. But it can get me to the part of town where my friends live, so I'll be taking it a lot.
There's one part of my area that I'm a little down on, though. You may recall that I've written about "kim bap shops" in the past. They're those cozy little restaurants you can go to by yourself to quietly get a bowl of soup or some rice dish, and occasionally a crazy, old, drunk Korean man may assail you for no apparent reason as you wait for your kimchi stew.
I frequent these places quite a bit, and in the past I've always been on good terms with the people who run them. They were always friendly and smiled at me; when I left Gwangju I even gave my local kim bap restaurant owner a hug. This year I've only found one kim bap place in my area. It's run by a bunch of middle aged women, and I'll tell you right now I won't be giving them any goodbye hugs. Every time I've gone there so far they've kinda glared at me and treated me like I'm an annoyance. I walked in there tonight after work and a few of them shot me some nasty looks, so I turned around and left. I wish I knew how to say, "YOU JUST LOST YOURSELF A CUSTOMER, MISSY!" in Korean.
Now I gotta find a new kim bap shop.
Unfortunately I didn't get a house to live in. I got an apartment with paper thin walls, underneath the loudest damn Korean in the country. It's bad enough that there's a couple of kids who can get a bit loud as they set off to school, but if I manage to sleep through that at 7am, the guy above me is certain to make sure I don't sleep past 8. This guy STOMPS around. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that each step sounds like he's jumping up and down trying to make as much noise as possible. The loudest he gets is when he walks down the stairs from his floor to mine. It's what I wake up to every morning. One of these days, and this is inevitable, I'm going to stumble out my door half naked and attempt to teach him how to descend a flight of stairs like a sensible and conscientious human being.
Another new thing about this year is that I have access to a subway. Gwangju doesn't have one, and my first year here I didn't live near any stations. Now I live right outside of the World Cup station subway stop. It consists of only one line, which doesn't even stretch across the entirety of the city. But it can get me to the part of town where my friends live, so I'll be taking it a lot.
There's one part of my area that I'm a little down on, though. You may recall that I've written about "kim bap shops" in the past. They're those cozy little restaurants you can go to by yourself to quietly get a bowl of soup or some rice dish, and occasionally a crazy, old, drunk Korean man may assail you for no apparent reason as you wait for your kimchi stew.
I frequent these places quite a bit, and in the past I've always been on good terms with the people who run them. They were always friendly and smiled at me; when I left Gwangju I even gave my local kim bap restaurant owner a hug. This year I've only found one kim bap place in my area. It's run by a bunch of middle aged women, and I'll tell you right now I won't be giving them any goodbye hugs. Every time I've gone there so far they've kinda glared at me and treated me like I'm an annoyance. I walked in there tonight after work and a few of them shot me some nasty looks, so I turned around and left. I wish I knew how to say, "YOU JUST LOST YOURSELF A CUSTOMER, MISSY!" in Korean.
Now I gotta find a new kim bap shop.
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