The Adventures of Team Daniels: Delux Apartment In The Sky

Welcome to our humble abode!

We live in Sacheon, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea. The city has a population of 113,000. Jinju is a larger city about 20 minutes away, with a population of 351,000. Sacheon is located almost centrally in the southern tip of South Korea. It is located off Sacheon Bay, so we have beautiful views of the bay and the mountains.

This is the entry way to Elcru Apartments. There are 9 buildings with 15 floors each, with about 60ish condos in each building. I have heard different numbers, but I think it's about 1900 square feet. Of course all apartment buildings are different, but I have heard that these are a lot bigger than average, like twice as big. Elcru apartments are also pretty new--rumor has it they are 8 years old.

This is our actual door on the 7th floor. The lock is electronic so we never bring a key. It's very handy for me, but even more handy that I don't have to worry about the kids taking or losing a key.

The girls and I would like to show you around. Here we are in the foyer. Notice the bench on the right so we can sit to put on our shoes.

Since there are no shoes worn inside, there is a shoe closet here in the entry way. There are also little closet doors on the left and right of this center one.

Directly opposite the shoe closet is a regular closet. Ours is a little messy because we have our big stuff in there.

If you turn right you will enter Eli's room on the end.

We have an extra bed for anyone who wants to come visit!

Chuey says it's time to move on to the next room.

One door down is Zeke's room.

This view is standing in Eli's doorway. That is Zeke's doorway to the right. Daisy's is the next door on the right.

Not hard to tell that this is the Daiser's room.

Oh, so girly.

You'll notice she brought the most decorations from home.

Across the hall from her is a bathroom.

Directly opposite the sink is the toilet and shower.

This is the view looking down the hall from the other end. Side note: that floor is super smooth and feels good on your bare feet. Moving on, Chuey would like you to turn your attention to the entryway on your left.

Here is the kitchen. We have a dishwasher, garbage disposal and water purifier. It is not super common to have a garbage disposal. Leftover food is composted, but it's brought down to the recycling center since apartment dwellers do not have yards. Recycling is a post on its own for a later date.

Notice the little pad-thing on the floor in front of the sink. That's a button to turn on the water and garbage disposal with your foot. Brilliant! All the Americans absolutely love our foot control and often catch ourselves trying to turn on other faucets with our feet.

If you walk down by my mixer, that cabinet is not only storage, but it also has a small fridge and freezer. We use it as our drink fridge.

Air conditioners are not common here. The Koreans have great technology, but not with central heat/air. We have a separate ceiling unit in the bedrooms and livingroom that we turn off each day because the electricity is super expensive.

That door leads to the air compressor room for the air conditioner. You have to keep the windows in the compressor room open to keep it ventilated so it doesn't overheat. The compressor room is also a fire proof room, and there is a rope ladder in there for an emergency exit.

Frito’s excessively large crate and a cooler are stored in there so our room is pretty full.

If your back is to the mini fridge, you will find the laundry room. There is a mop sink in there, too.

Dryers are not common over here, either. Once again, with such great technology, I find it odd that they are so far behind on things like dryers. Plus it gets super humid in the summer so it takes clothes ages to dry.

When we arrived the washer/dryer were not stacked and the washer was in front of the cabinet, rendering it useless. I found a kit to stack them in the fire room, so we got it done. I love this little room now. Once again, with the lack of technology thing, you have to keep the window cracked so mold does not grow. Apparently, in the winter mold does in fact start to grow on the walls because it's too cold to leave the window cracked. Eww.

Going back in the kitchen, this is the view if your back is to the kitchen sink. There are 3 closets in the kitchen plus this one with the vents on top. And you can see we also have a regular-sized refrigerator.

I am standing right beside the island to take this picture. Check out that gorgeous view of the rice paddies and the mountains!

We mix up the location of the turquoise couch; when we need more space it goes in front of the window, and we often move it opposite so we can sit on the couch and look outside.

That R2D2 looking thing in the corner is an air purifier. The smog is really bad over here. A lot of people wear masks outside. Some days it gets so bad they suggest you stay indoors. That's my least favorite part about Korea.

I keep mentioning the great technology--here is a good example. This key pad calls us when someone rings the bell downstairs and we can let them in the building, as well as ring at our front door and we can unlock that, too. It also has a camera to watch the 3 big play areas on the grounds so you can keep an eye on your kids. This is possible because it's so safe that kids are allowed to go outside alone. *that's a Korean bonus--I love this part

Another odd lack of central air/heat thing—the only heat is in the floors. The dial is to control the heat in the floor. Each room has its own control. The material that the floors are made of is super soft and we have made several divets already. 😬

Right beside the control panel is our bedroom door.

Once again, love the view!

Standing with your back to the window you see the makeup area.

The closet is opposite the mirror.

Moving on to our bathroom. We love the large shower.

Every time I have taken a bath I think about how heavy water is, and what would happen if the floor fell in? Then I think what if someone above me was taking a bath and the floor collapsed on me? I usually take a shower.

Look at the grout. It's sparkly. All the floors in our apartment have sparkly grout and you see it when you're out and about. How funny is that? It's a pre-teen girl's dream.

Beside the toilet is a little communication box. If someone rings the bell while I'm on the toilet I can talk to them and let them in. I have not used that handy little gadget yet so I'm not even sure I will know how if the need ever arises.

Chuey says don't forget about the built-in cabinet. It is to the left of our bedroom door, next to the kitchen. There is a lot of storage in the apartment, but most of it is really thin, so it can't hold a ton. This one is our game center and works great for that, though.

I have one funny incident I would like to share. One afternoon Abe and I were running the stairs in the building for exercise. The dogs knew we were out there and were barking at us. When we were finished I couldn't get the keypad to work. We have a spare 9-volt battery that you can use to do a quick one-time charge if the batteries go bad. I tried that to no avail. We went down to the office and tried to explain (remember the language thing). They thought we were idiots and they gave us a new 9-volt to try. Still no dice. Back we went, once again trying to communicate that it didn't work. Then they really thought we were idiots and sent a guy to come with us. He could not make it work either. He wanted us to call someone. At first I was like, my phone is inside. Then I realized he wanted me to call the person inside to let us in. We said there was no one inside. Once again he thought we were idiots and there had to be someone inside who locked the door.

What happened was Frito had jumped up and got her foot on the door knob. The problem is that there is a safety lock that you can only control from the inside. Apparently she flipped the lock. Literally only way to get in from the outside is by breaking the lock.

Since we were exercising we did not bring a phone with us. Thankfully I ran upstairs and Linda let me borrow her phone to call Soo (the lady who helped us move in). She wasn't answering, but finally got back to us. She said it was OK to get a locksmith to do what he had to do.

It totally reminded me of the time when Zeke was a toddler and as I was putting something in the trunk he locked the door without my knowledge. He was too little to understand when I asked him to push the button to let me in. We had to call the fire department to break a window. Same kind of deal here. I was like, "Come on, Frito, put your paw back up there and flip the switch again." Unfortunately she didn't understand how to do that. Eventually the locksmith came and replaced the whole ding dong thing. Since then we have put tape on it so that won't happen again.