Shoebox Tour 2014 - our Korean apartment

This turned out much longer than I anticipated. As in, possibly the longest post I've ever written. And as expected, this is overly detailed. Welcome to my crazy! It would, in theory, be easier to do a video tour, because then I wouldn't have to upload one MILLION photos of every angle of every room, but it turns out that I hate the way my voice sounds recorded, and I can't subject the internet to that sort of noise. So a photo tour it is. Buckle up!

Front door! When you get off the elevator, you will come upon this lovely scene.

A massive stroller and bags of poopy diapers. Only the most welcoming of sights!

To the left, beside the stroller, there is a little half-wall with a storage area behind it. Not that I don't trust my neighbors, but I'm not storing my Christmas decorations and such out here, so it is mostly a crap pit. Behold.

What should you steal first? The broken wagon? Or the broken fan? Decisions, decisions..

The front door.

The button on the right is the doorbell. There is a little camera inside so that when you ring it, I can see your face on a screen inside and decide if I want to pretend that I'm home or not. (Most likely the shrieking children will give me away though.) When I wanna go inside, I slide up the little slider thingy, punch in my code, then slide it back down. And voila! The door unlocks.

Once you're inside, you'll need to take your shoes off. One, because it's tradition in Korea, and two because it's disgusting to wear your shoes in the house. Lucky for you, I have a nice big shoe closet!

Ta-da! It smells really bad. Like feet.

The opposite side is another shoe closet, but with drawers and other little organizational areas.

We store only the most useful of things in here- old bubbles, shovels, and jackets that don't fit anyone anymore.

One complaint I have is this (Korea, listen up)- there is no coat closet. For a place that experiences cold weather, I kind of expect this. I appreciate the shoe storage, really I do, but let's make the coat closet thing happen.

Moving onward, we shall see the kids' bathroom. And if you're visiting, this is your bathroom too! So multifunctional!

There are no towel hooks in the bathrooms here. And since we don't tend to close the door while using the bathroom ANYWAY (hello suddenly-manic toddlers!), we just hang their towels on the door handle. (If you come visit, I promise I'll close the door while using the bathroom. Pinky promise.)

Notice the continuing bathroom theme- no storage. The mirrors do slide open and there is space in there, but not for anything too tall, like cleaners. The tub is a great size (fits 2 medium-sized toddlers!) and the floor is a great space to store baby potties that no one plans to use ever.

Bath toys are stored in a massive Korean strainer, and what bathroom is complete without Army gear decor?

There is a shower head, but no shower curtain. Korean bathrooms have tile floors that are sunken lower than the rest of the floors in the house. There is also a large drain in the floor so you can drain all of your water out that way.

So no big deal if you spill all of the water out of the bathtub!

Moving right along, we stumble into Molly's room. (Don't forget to step up when you exit the bathroom! Your toes will thank you!)

Ahhh so peaceful. Even a Hello Kitty minky blanket to snuggle with. (When in Korea...)

Books, glider, the blessed and most sacred sound machine.

Molly's room has sliding glass doors. They lead out to a little Korean "balcony." It's all glassed in, but it's the closest thing we've got to a balcony. Unfortunately....

HOARDERS.

This is the only storage space we have. Hence the sheer curtains that always cover Molly's doors. Notice the infant carrier. I keep it with me to ward off the baby spirits. Because if I'd put it in storage... you know what would happen.

On the opposite side- outdoor shower!

In case you wanna show it all off to the elementary school behind our house.

Here's her view. Well, it would be her view if we opened the curtains. And cleared out the mountain o' crap.

We've been hiking on those mountains! Almost died! Fun memories.

The last cool Korean feature of Molly's balcony is the drying rack. Apparently all Koreans do not use their balconies for storing junk and Christmas decorations and actually dry their clothes out here. There is a little remote control that brings the rack down to normal Korean height, you hang your clothes on it, and then push the button and it goes back to the ceiling. There's even a fan option on there to dry them faster.

I'll clean the glass tomorrow. Ha. Not.

Moving onto the living room!

The monstrosity that is The Lack Of A Coat Closet. And its sidekick- Basket O' Winter Crap.

The "air conditioning" Pfffffffffft......... This one tower is supposed to cool the whole place down. As you can imagine, that doesn't happen. Especially when we can't read what it says...

This is the touch screen I was telling you about- where I can see you on the outside without you knowing that I'm looking.

Top: speaker where Korean announcements pertaining to our apartment complex spill out. These come on randomly, and sometimes at night. The horribly wrong translations make up for the annoying factor of hearing them at 9pm. Middle: touch screen to buzz people in the building, talk to them without opening your door, call the guards, check your electric usage, etc. Bottom left: controls the heated floors of each room and the water heater. Bottom right: touch screen to control living room lights.

I will be honest with you- I don't really know what this is for. It's another touch screen. I accidentally fell into the top button while Steve was in the shower. It turns off all the lights in the house at once. The bottom button turns off all the gas in the house. Maybe this is something the Koreans hit before walking out the door to ensure safety? I try to never touch them. Or fall into them. Mostly because you can't just push it again and have everything turn back on.

Moving into the kitchen...

Look, there's the door. We have walked all of 4 feet so far.

If you sent us a Christmas card, thank you. To show my appreciation, I'll be leaving them up until next Christmas.

Storage- but not for ugly things since it's all see-through.

Wall of Art Mostly Done By Other People With My Kids

This pull-out space under the metal-covered microwave is where you're supposed to put your rice cooker. Seeing as I'm so white though, I just use it to store junk.

You just lift the handle on the cover and voila!

A microwave we don't understand! We only use the bottom button, which we push repeatedly to warm things up in 30-second increments. I know, you don't have to say it, we're geniuses.

Moving right along ever so slowly in painful detail, we have the dryer! In the kitchen. Nothing about this bothers me. It's nice white noise.

Since Koreans don't typically use dryers, this one is American, rented from the Army. We plug it into a transformer to convert the energy, and throw the metal air expeller thingymabob out the window. It is just as klassy as you're imagining.

Top left: the gas line for the oven and the mechanical thingy that turns it off when I accidentally fall into that touch screen by the door. Top right: my little shelf of cute and useful things. Bottom: Appliances and previously mentioned transformer.

Possibly one of the nicer kitchen amenities is the kimchi fridge. They come with very pungent-smelling kimchi containers that fit perfectly in the fridge, but we opted to store those in a well-ventilated area and use them for something a bit more useful for us.

The top fridge has milk and cheese and other foodstuffs in it. The bottom is for booze. Yum. And naturally, top right, we have no clue what any of this means. We just hit buttons until it goes cold and then we try not to touch it again.

Next we have our fancy water machine. Apparently Korea does not filter their water to American standards (our standards, they are pretty high, it seems), so you get a water machine to further filter your water. Ours makes ice too, so breathe easy Mama! Your Diet Coke will be iced when you come visit!

I mean, again, we have no clue what this thing is capable of doing. We just push for water and don't expect much else.

And here's my Easy Bake Oven!

It looks pretty, but it's all in Celsius (oh, and Korean!) and if you touch the outside while you're cooking something, you will burn your hand. Apparently Koreans don't use ovens. Ever. They aren't even included in some apartments.

I can appreciate the gas range though.

I didn't take photos of my sink because it was full of dishes. And I really didn't want to waste valuable preschool time washing dishes. Trust me, it's huge and I love it. There is no garbage disposal though and that is just disgusting. I've lived without a garbage disposal before, but I've never had to empty a food basket before. Underneath the sink there is a little metal basket that catches all the food you unknowingly washed down the drain. You must now empty that wet goop out into your....

food dehydrator!!

We didn't know what this weird little machine was under the sink when we first moved in. But it turns out, you open the drawer and throw all of your food waste inside, press a button, and it dehydrates it for you, while eliminating the smells! (What you are seeing is broccoli and carrot roughage, post-juicing.) Since that is part of our trash system, we just take the bucket out, chuck all of the food waste in, rinse it out, and place it back in the dehydrator.

The sink has a regular faucet handle up top to control how fast the water comes out, but you control the water being turned on and off with a foot pedal.

I'll probably need this for my future dream house. It takes some getting used to, but now I'm kinda hooked.

To the right of the kitchen dryer, is the itsy bitsy teeny weeny laundry room.

It's a tight squeeze in this room between the recycling and the washing machine.

Leaving the kitchen, we find Sam's room. And it's oddly clean.

Don't be fooled. This was destroyed again before bed. Which leaves me wondering why I ever bother cleaning it in the first place?

The Christmas tree has turned into a nightlight of sorts. So for now (and probably forever), it stays.

Their favorite pastime is to rip all the books off the shelf while laughing maniacally.

And exiting Sam's room and heading to the "master" bedroom.

When the movers hauled this through the window, I said, "What? Did I really ask to bring that?" Steve said, "You got a little crazy there towards the end. I wasn't gonna tell you no." Smart man.

Another rarity- bed made. Also, a fun fact- our lamps are so useless. We need a transformer to plug them in. Guess who's side of the bed doesn't even have a plug, much less a transformer?

Steve's side of the bed. The white cabinet is our bathroom storage since we have none. (You'll see.) And the transformer is for my blow dryer, random vacuuming, and Steve's razor when he buzzes his head.

Top left: The control panel on the left, I honestly don't know what that's for. The little button that's split in half controls the light. And only the top half of the button works, which irritates the bejeezus outta me. Nothing like being in a hurry and having to press precisely on one half of a tiny button. The second control panel is for the heated floors and the water heater. We keep the post-it note so we don't forget what everything is for. Right: a wall of closets. If you've been paying attention, you'll notice that they are the only closets in the house, outside of the shoe closets when you walk in the front door. Bottom left: I am embarrassed. This is a little vanity area with a huge mirror (and no light). It has become a dumping ground for clothes that need to go to the thrift store on post.

Connected to our room, is a little bonus area. We're clearly using it as an office/catch-all/crap collector.

I know. It's hideous. (Minus the pillow Lauren made me during the deployment- "scream here")

Besides the tower in the living room, there is this tiny AC unit. Don't let its size fool you though, it's pretty powerful!

And last but not least, the master bathroom. It's almost as tiny as our Ft Campbell bathroom, but with a tub included, so I think square footage-wise, it's slightly larger. Three extra points for the shoebox.

Again- no storage, no towel hooks. One tiny bathtub/shower. The bathtub is so tiny that you cannot extend your legs all the way out. But it is pretty deep, so that's a small plus I guess..

Korean quirks- our super grown-up master bath has this happy kitty toothbrush holder glued to the wall. Such a nice statement piece. Bottom left: techno-toilet. Bottom right: That's our toilet plugged into the wall. Because yes, the toilet seats here need POWER. Above that plug is (what I am told) a noise-maker. Apparently Koreans do not like to be heard "doing the deed" so they can push a button and have a waterfall sound cover the tinkling sound they're making in the toilet. Ours doesn't work, but fortunately, it wasn't a deal-breaker for us.

Behind the bathroom door is this glassed-in shower. We were particularly excited about the rain head shower, but the water pressure from that is crap, so we don't even use it anymore. It's pretty though, right?

And there you have it folks- the longest house tour in the history of the world. Aren't you glad my house is so small? Otherwise this could have been a lot worse. On the plus side, now you can all come visit and know exactly where everything is. You're welcome.