I had a long love/hate relationship with my first apartment. When they first drove me up to it I hated it and didnt want to go in. When I did I wanted to walk out but had to be polite having just arrived an a new country with a new job so just smiled and said it was nice. I dont think anybody had lived there, there were cobwebs everywhere and needed to be scrubbed several times, including the ceiling. Another early problem was the drains which just had a constant sewer smell. I had no privacy as I was a ground floor apartment and people would be walking by my window and the tenants upstairs parked their car by my living room window so I could never keep it open or they can stare inside. After all the work I put in the place was actually quite nice after the second month and I wanted to keep the same apartment when I renewed my contract in august so that I wouldnt have to spend vacation time changing apartments, one of the reasons I renewed with my school. However, that was about to change. The night before I flew to toronto in the end of july I was awoken as there were noises in my apartment of things falling down. I turned on the light at 3am to see a mouse sitting on my kitchen counter. Scared by the light it ran under the fridge then into the bathroom. I then realized it had swam out thru the toilet and this must have been how it entered or how else would it have known to go there so fast. This was the night before my flight to toronto for two weeks so there wasnt anything I could do and I didnt want mice running around my place when I was gone. Also there were big dust clumps by my fridge earlier which meant it had come before. With a morning flight to canada the only thing I could do was send an email to my teacher explaining and that I didnt want this apartment when I came back as it was unsanitary and unhealthy to have mice coming from inside the toilet bowl and sewers running on my kitchen counter. While in canada I was getting emails discussing possible apartments. We found a brand new building across the river next to homeplus the big walmart type department store that is partnered with tescos in the UK. Its on the first floor up, has keyless entry, and cctv in the lobby. I never liked my old apartment that I was a ground floor, everyone knows i'm a foreigner, and anyone can just walk in from the street and kick my door down. Luckily korea is very safe so nothing to worry about. I also joked with my teacher that cctv wont stop a mouse from getting in! I miss the neighbourhood of my old apartment. There were family run supermarkets a block away and a bakery run by my students parents. Further away was the friday street market where I would buy fruit and vegetables cheaper than homeplus and buy fresh baked korean donuts and seafood. The new apartment just has the giant homeplus which is annoying if you just want to buy one thing and have to go down all the aisles and stand in the queues Apartment styles tend to have bachelors or one bedrooms on the lower floor, two bedrooms on the middle floor and one family suite on the top floor. My landlord lives on the top floor. She gave me some gifts when I came and is quite friendly but doesnt speak much english so we struggle to communicate. The apartment is brand new and never lived in. There is still plastic wrapping on parts of the door. The bathroom is brand new tiled though I noticed some of them are upside down. Fridge and washing machine are brand new. Fridge is very small but washing machine is quite large Koreans dont like windows or views and windows are usually in the laundry room obscured by overhead clothes drying racks. I use my laundry room for overflow storage of coats on the hanging racks. The floor heating control panel is a different make from my old apartment so a job figuring it out again. The old one had manual k*** you could turn to set water and room temperatures. This one is electronic. So far it hasnt got cold enough for me to start fiddling with it. Cable and internet is included and I just give the landlady 20,000w each month ($18). I have digital cable so several hundred channels now unlike my old package. The best channel I have is BBC Entertainment which shows all the UK BBC shows except Eastenders. The travel channel also keeps me up nightly. I dont have CNN anymore, it is a blocked channel not part of the package, as is BBC World. However, I have China State TV english news. This is actually not bad and covers all the same world events BBC and CNN would. Unfortunately this is a foreign broadcast only channel and I've never seen it in China itself. I also have Japan TV english news. Both news channels are not continuous like CNN so you have to know broadcast times to watch the news. Across the river is homeplus. They have lots of Uk brand biscuits from tesco. I try not to buy too much from there and shop locally, and just get the things I cant get elsewhere like baked beans and tesco biscuits!. I was waiting forever for my bills. Finally the electric came combined for two months Aug-Oct. It was 13,000w ($12) about the same what my old apartment was for monthly. My gas was even more of a shocker. For the same two month period it was 850w (.75 cents)!. This is for daily hot showers, regular cooking, and occasional overnight heating. My bank charges me a flat 500w (.45 cents) to pay the bill which was even more ridiculous making my total bill just over $1!!!. For October when I was using overnight heating it was just under $20. I really love my new apartment and it will be tough when my year is up as I dont want to do a 3rd year with the same school so doubt I can keep this with my new school which might not even be in this area. Visit My Page on Facebook : Departures1