Finding bedding I had a nice down comforter at home, but it was quite large, so I left it behind, figuring I could find something here. Yea... not so much. After a few Google searches, it looked like only large department stores and the Express Bus Terminal subway station had bedding for sale. As none of the large department stores (Lotte, E-mart, Homeplus) are conveniently located on the south side of the river ("gangnam," if you will), I decided to try the EBT yesterday. 4 blocks walking, 6 bus stops, 6 subway stops, a subway line transfer, another subway stop, and I finally arrived at EBT. (Keep in mind, all of that cost me about 90 cents.) There were MILES of stalls and stores selling things. Just when I'd almost given up hope (there was one bedding store in the main area outside the turnstiles but they only had queen size comforters), I wandered through this cement corridor (of course with more stalls), down some stairs, and stumbled upon the main drag. I thought there were tons of stores in the first area, but no... this went on forever -- 2 halls, with stores on both sides of both halls. Shoes, makeup, winter clothes, underwear, cellphone covers....x100. About halfway down, there was a bedding store! The Korean ajummas (middle-aged ladies) working at the store were helpful, though confused by my lack of desire to buy a comforter and sheet 'set'. The comforter I found is fluffy and soft. I didn't want to be surrounded by fuzz (plus I figured it wouldn't wash well), so I bought a quilted "sheet" for the bottom (it's not fitted or sheet-like as far as what I've come to know. It's hard to explain, but it's more like a mattress cover than a 'sheet'). Anyway, the one lady wrapped it up well and I didn't really have trouble taking it on the bus and subway. The worst part was walking 4 blocks after the rest of the trip with this huge, heavy bag. And after all that, I was wandering around Daehakdong today, and I found "리빙 & 홈" (Living and Home), a store with everything for a house imaginable. It was overwhelming. I bought an extension cord, a bath mat, laundry detergent and fabric softener, and a hot/cold pack. There were sections for electronics, stationery, an entire aisle of lunchboxes (the vacuum-sealed ones looked interesting), mops, etc etc. And there was also a section for bedding! Though none of the comforters looked as warm as mine... I might've settled for one of those ones to avoid the trip to EBT. Ah well. There's also a section with drying racks, which I'll be visiting again tomorrow. I had no hands today.
Garbage bags Korea has an interesting system for trash collection. You can't just go into any store and buy a box of Hefty bags. You have to go to a convenience store near your residence and purchase local trash bags (it has the area name on it). There's no trash collection tax/fee, so the city makes its money by selling the bags at whatever price is appropriate for the area. But the system is a little complicated (at least to me, now). First, the bags aren't put out in the store. I had to ask the sales clerk and he pulled all the different colors and kinds out from under the counter. You have to separate food waste from regular trash from recyclables. The food waste bags (yellow) came in 2 liter and 5L varieties... and the regular trash bags (white) came in 5L and 10L versions. I paid ~90 cents for 20 2L yellow, and ~$3 for 20 5L white. It doesn't look like you need a bag for recyclables. There's no trash collection day, either. There are bins outside my building, and it seems like they're emptied every day, or at least frequently. But being restricted to 5L (~1.3 gallons) trash bags? No wonder no one seems to get plastic bags at the store (I've had to ask for one every time)... even crumpled up, that'd fill half the trash bag. Though I guess I can use them for recyclables, hmm...
Skype Skype is great. Not only can you do free internet-to-internet voice and video calls, but for ~$50/year you can buy a local Skype Number (I got one in the Pittsburgh area), where people can dial that (on a mobile or landline) and you can pick it up via Skype. It goes to a voicemail system if you're offline, or you can forward it to another number from your Skype account. And for another ~$50/year, you can subscribe to Skype Premium, which gives you unlimited calls to US mobile and landline numbers. (For both of these options, other countries are available. For example, I could've gotten a local South Korean number that forwarded automatically to my Skype.) I actually set off a credit card fraud alert purchasing these subscriptions, and then I used the "fraudulent" Skype subscription to call the card's 1-800 fraud protection number. ^^
Washing machine Man, I don't know how people that don't know any Korean (especially no Hangul) can come here and not go crazy. I know a fair amount of Korean, and I like to Google and/or Translate things ahead of time (or, when wifi is in range, while shopping), and I still couldn't figure out if what I was looking at was fabric softener, laundry detergent, dish(washer) detergent, etc. I made a guess based on size (and I recognized the word for fabric softener, 섬유 유연제, "Seo-myu u-yeon-je"), and after some more extensive Googling at home, I figured out I had bought one each of what I needed, but for a while there, I wasn't sure. The pictures on the bottle are all of green fields and smiling ladies. Not even clothes, to indicate it's not for dishes. Anyway - if you're looking for laundry detergent and fabric softener, I can tell you that these, at least, will work:
Act'z laundry detergent on the left, Downy fabric softener on the right
Refrigerator The dorm comes with a Samsung Korean refrigerator, and a users manual only in Korean. At first I couldn't figure out how to turn it on because the settings are pretty generic -- 강 (gang) when by itself can (also) mean "river" or "strong." 약 (yak) means "about/approximately" or "medicine." Obviously those meanings have nothing to do with refrigerators. Luckily the manual went into a little more detail (as will I, since I spent a few minutes translating it):
강 - Use when there's a lot of food and the fridge is already cold
약 - Use when there's not a lot of food and the fridge is already cold
중 (jung) - Usual/normal setting
동계 (dong-gye) - Use when temperature is ~10*C (50*F) (for a quick chill?)
성에제거 (seong-e-je-geo) - Defrost
That's all I can think of for now.
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