Day 363: Apartment Hunting

Today was the last day off for Lunar New Year. I went into the city with Pauline because she's looking for a home and went to go and check out an apartment. I didn't have any afternoon plans so I tagged along. The apartment was in Hongdae which is where much of Seoul's best nightlife is. And it's right next to Sincheon, which I firmly believe, is the city's coolest neighbourhood. If Pauline gets an apartment here that's going to be so sweet ass!

Looking for an apartment back home can be a daunting and exhausting challenge. Now imagine doing it in a foreign country! The biggest challenge here, besides the obvious language barrier one, is how Korean landlords rule this country with an iron fist. They totally have all the power. Leases here are always and only for one year, and heaven help you if you break it. It's not like back home where you just pay a small fine and then you're free. Here you still have to pay all the rent for the rest of your contract! (unless you can find someone to take your place.)

There's also the issue of 'key money.' Key Money is the massive deposit that you have to give to the landlord before you're allowed to move in. Once again it's quite different from back home. Here it's not just paying for one month's rent or something, you have to pay in the *thousands* of dollars!!! Most places are between $2000-5000 just for a very basic simple apartment. It's money that you get back in the end (usually, unless the landlord can find one of the million and one reasons why he shouldn't - ex: 'I feel like repainting the apartment') but it's still A LOT of money to have to come up with!

The apartment we saw was really cool actually. It was big and spacious and within walking distance of a subway station. It's a little on the expensive side, but with Pauline's boyfriend moving here in a month or two that's not that big of an issue. There was another apartment in the basement of the same building that we also looked at, but it was dark and crampted and just had really bad ju-ju so we said ixnay on that one.

Pauline wants to shop around before making her choice, but I hope she gets this one. Looks pretty great to me!