Monday, 12 October 2009
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My Surroundings: Apartment and Neighborhood
My place is what you might call a 'granny flat,' total 210 square feet. It's divided up like this. When you first come in, there's an entryway that doubles as a shower/laundry area. It's an addition to the original house, so it has a brick wall on two sides. The other two sides and ceiling are made of sheet metal panels with an insulated core. This area has a tile floor with 2 drain holes in it, one for the shower and one for the washing machine. This is where I store 2 spare chairs. There's a little (4' x 4') toilet cubicle (with a lockable door) next to the shower area, one step up from the entry. It's floor is also tile, and is where the cats' litter box resides.
If you turn left when you come in the front door, there's a kitchenette (with a lockable door) which is 4 feet wide by 10 feet long. This holds my computer, a sink, a table, 3 cupboards and 3 recycling containers. After walking thru the kitchenette, you come to the main room, about 8 by 10 feet, containing my single bed (which converts to a small couch), a table and a chair, 2 small bookcases, 2 small bureaus and several storage boxes. The walls are covered with a cream paper that has fleur-de-lys in gold scattered sparingly over it. The ceilings are also papered with this same pattern! By the look of it, there are some odd lumps and holes disguised by that paper. The ceilings' edges are all finished with walnut-stained quarter-round wood moulding.
Outside, my house is like the houses I described in January . Every house is separated from the next by a brick or cement wall, all the way around. You pass through a metal gate to enter the dooryard. Yesterday, my landlady and I swept the concrete yard and carried out all the clutter that had accumulated since her husband got sick two years ago. (He passed away last April.) I guess she called the recyclers, because it was all gone when I came back from Seoul after the Sunday night meeting.
Our neighborhood is a warren of tiny alleys. If someone parks a car beside their house, only motorscooters can go up and down our street. There is a parking lot two houses down for residents. Our alleys are actually asphalt paved pedestrian walkways. The storm drains and utility pipes are under these alleys, so when the city does it's annual pipe maintenance, the alleys get dug up and repaved, producing bumps and hollows. I have to watch where I walk.
The good thing is that the only traffic we get is the mailman on his scooter and the boys from the takeout restaurants who deliver dinners up and down our "street." So, when school is not in session, children use the alley as their playground. I often see chalk patterns drawn on the alley, where little girls play 'Korean hopscotch.' As my alley goes straight up the side of the mountain, kids come barreling down the hill on their bikes! The electric company, ambulance service and fire department have special narrow trucks, about the size of a pickup truck, to go into these alleys.
Happy Trails!
~ Sil
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Comments (9)
It is small but sounds interesting. You certainly have to be organized! Was it hard for you to adjust to the surrounding? are there lots of houses around there?
Adjusting has not been hard. My son would say, "That's because you're so adaptable, Mom."
The houses in the area where I live are about 12 feet apart, with a wall halfway between each one. The alley that runs in front is about 10 feet wide. The blocks between the alleys are two houses wide, and ten houses long, on average. The length varies because the whole neighborhood is built on the side of a mountain. There is a main road at the base of the mountain and a secondary road about one-third of the way up, called Gudo Ro [which means 'old or back road']. The area either side of Gudo Ro is packed with hundreds of three-story houses just like mine. Several thousand families live here.
That is fascinating.
Oh my word! I suppose clothes go in the bureau's. But shoes?
Thanks for the word picture. Off to check the other link now.
There's a little tile rectangle in the kitchenette just for shoes. The spare and off-season shoes go under one of the chairs in the entryway. I have a special pair of plastic slippers with good treads to wear in the shower/toilet area. That's so I don't slip on wet tile.
So funny to think how differently you're living there than I am here. I at least have a frame of reference in that I've been to other countries and seen how much more efficiently space can be used... the Americans who have not had those experiences could probably use some pictures to help wrap their minds around a "house" being that small.
Sometimes I look around my four-bedroom, three-bath, 2500 square foot house and think "this is so extravagant!" And I'm looking at a 40+ year old house that is nothing special compared to the half-million dollar homes in my area! It is amazing how differently people use resources; and I think many Americans aren't fully aware of what a bounty it is that we enjoy and use without thought to waste.
So very interesting to read about your home, your neighborhood, and your surroundings. It's funny how I think of our very humble doublewide trailer here as tiny, but it's all relative, isn't it?
I really enjoyed your comment on my blog about your children and the "Cookie Monster." It was wonderful---thanks!
Check this lady out ....
http://blueridgebluecollargirl.wordpress.com/ Thank you, Beth!
Hugs from Asia!
Thank you so much for telling us about your home and neighborhood. 210 is just about enough room for one big room.....is that right? I had a terrible time going from 3000 sq ft to 800. We refused to give up many of the family stuff so got a storage unity. Having only 210 would be much like living aboard. :)