![\"apt\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-01-20160826-raemiandaechipalace-dir.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"sunset\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-02-20160829-apt-sunset.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"sunrise\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-03-20160830-apt-sunrise.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhen we were in search of apartments, we had three simple criteria.\u00a0 Walk-ability to a grocery store, commute to work, and close to green space.\u00a0 A more English speaking neighborhood would simply be a bonus.\u00a0 The relocation agent and realtor had flatly told us that such a trio was not very possible.\u00a0 Well, mapping and other avenues paved the way.\u00a0 A little green space is right below us, and we are a ten minute walk from a river path.\u00a0 The office is one mile away, shorter as the crow flies.\u00a0 The small building in front of us?\u00a0 We have yet to fully explore it, but from our visits, this is what it houses:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Grocery store in the basement<\/li>\n
- Two butchers also in the basement<\/li>\n
- Convenience store<\/li>\n
- Two bakeries. One of which is Australian Organic certified, whatever that means being in Korea; and sells lunch sandwiches in baguettes.<\/li>\n
- Small Korean eatery<\/li>\n
- Vietnamese restaurant<\/li>\n
- A little sushi place<\/li>\n
- A farm to shop store with meats, eggs, veg. Lunch salads, and pizza.<\/li>\n
- A co-op, which emphasis on natural\/organic products.<\/li>\n
- An overly expensive organic produce shop<\/li>\n
- A fruit shop<\/li>\n
- Two pre-made banchan (Korean side dishes) shops which sometimes also sell main dishes, probably for busy parents.<\/li>\n
- Fried chicken, of course<\/li>\n
- Mysterious take-out only places.\u00a0 Where we’ve noticed folks leaving carrying take out. These are probably also the places that stick the delivery flyers on our door.\u00a0 But we’ll leave this till we progress to another level of Korean adaptation.<\/li>\n
- Olive young (akin to body shop)<\/li>\n
- Some cupcake place<\/li>\n
- And a few floors of private cram schools that, we’ve come to realize, cause us to pay a premium for everything else<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Repeat that building, in varying ages, about 8 times, and that would be the row in front of the apartment complex.\u00a0 The older buildings might be more adventuresome and challenging, and make us prone to an over indulgence of weekly fried chicken.\u00a0 But we wouldn’t starve.\u00a0 In fact, everyone non-Korean who has visited think it’s an amazing convenience.\u00a0 We’ve yet to even understand our one mile radius.\u00a0 Can you imaging the higher walkscore areas in Seoul, considering that we are living in an area where “there’s nothing there”, according to her Korean co-workers?<\/p>\n
Of course, till we have better ability with the language, the smiles and gesturing are all part of living.\u00a0 Especially in a local neighborhood where tourists do not typically venture.\u00a0 Don’t expect the English menus of Itaewon here.\u00a0 More often than not, it’s all in hangul with no pictures.\u00a0 We’re the visitor, so it’s on us learn the language.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Annie felt good enough Friday morning after biopsy to walk, so we crossed the major street (where I took the first photo of the apartment building).\u00a0 And met my sis for brunch round the corner.<\/p>\n
![\"with](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-04-20160826-brunch-sis-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>with sis at brunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/p>\n
Some friends have been curious about my mention of “glamorous dumpster diving” (how furniture is seemingly just tossed away).\u00a0 Even my sister, who is much classier than I am, pointed at items and said, “Look at that! It’s perfectly good! Do you want it?” Here’s an example.<\/p>\n
![\"hmm...](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-05-20160826-qualitydumpsterdive-desk-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>hmm… shall we?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Perfectly good, and nice, home office setup. Even the drawers had the smooth auto dampened close feature. The desk had, oh, two removable crayon marks? If we were under different circumstances, I know where they’d be now! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
My sis and I headed to the grocery store as Annie napped.\u00a0 I had told her about the short season large peaches that we had. Not really remembering the size well, the normal “large” seemed right.\u00a0 And given that a whole case of 16 peaches were only 2x the price of 4, the “Asian” in us succumbed to buying the case.\u00a0 I blame my sis.\u00a0 But the blame’s on me for identifying the wrong type of peaches.\u00a0 There is large, and there is LARGE.\u00a0 From translation, it’s something along the lines of Giant Honey Peach.\u00a0 We hope that we can’t overdose on peaches.<\/p>\n
![\"big](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-07-20160827-peaches-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"BIG\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-08-20160830-fuit-gianthoneywhitepeach-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Figs are also in season. I’ve never gotten to see figs sold in cases.\u00a0 So yes, another case of fruit.\u00a0 We’ve had the figs straight, baked with cheese and honey, and at breakfast with yogurt.<\/p>\n
![\"fresh](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-09-20160830-fuit-figs-breakfast-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>fresh figs and yogurt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/p>\n
Back to the neighborhood.\u00a0 There are lots of independent coffee shops in Seoul. Independent does not necessarily mean good coffee though.\u00a0 However, right at the other front corner of our apartment complex is a quaint coffee house.\u00a0 My sis and I hung out there for the afternoon.\u00a0 They roast small batches of coffee, and make good drinks. It’s no Storyville (Seattle reference), but good.\u00a0 With deserts and cookies; and salads and sandwiches over lunch.\u00a0 Friends have also asked us about churches nearby.\u00a0 Well, there’s at least 3 surrounding the apartment complex, but none with English congregations in the neighborhood I’ve noticed yet.\u00a0 We had bbq for dinner; in a different building in front of the complex.<\/p>\n
![\"cafe\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-11-20160829-coffeebrewer-roasting-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"cafe\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-12-20160828-coffeebrewer-eveningwithsunil-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"bbq\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-06-20160826-bbq-withsis-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Saturday, two days after biopsy.\u00a0 A sore butt does not deter my beloved from walking around for some good ice cream.\u00a0 Our favorite till date, Baek Mi Dang \u767e\u5473\u5802.\u00a0 Simple and pure.\u00a0 Organic milk, in full creaminess, gets poured into the soft serve ice cream machine. Good thing this isn’t on our block, it’s a distant one mile walk away.<\/p>\n
![\"Ice](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-10-20160827-lunch-icecreambaekmidang-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>Ice cream after lunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/p>\n
Talking about distances.\u00a0 The hospital she will be primarily getting treatment at seems far.\u00a0 Relatively.\u00a0 It is 2 miles away.\u00a0 The hospital she’s been getting radiation at is 1 mile away, with one of it’s shuttle buses passing a bus stop at the end of the block.\u00a0 Yes, hospitals in Seoul tend to have shuttles covering a sizable population of their neighborhood.\u00a0 We see many elderly independently going to their medical appointments on the shuttles.<\/p>\n
Yes, no doubt an emergency would be tricky.\u00a0 Though the emergency line here has an English access option;\u00a0 plus we have some amazing support from her workplace, including emergency contacts.<\/p>\n
R, my brother-in-law, routed his flight from CA to SG through Seoul, and spent Sunday with us as well.\u00a0 We walked to lunch at a Japanese place, next to where the SAP Seoul office used to be.\u00a0 Just a block away.\u00a0 Sis used to work for SAP and had been to the area a few times!\u00a0 Back at the apartment, we played Quiddler and some Scrabble variations before they took off back for Singapore.<\/p>\n
![\"scrabble](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-13-20160828-sisrussat-speedscabble-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"weekend](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-14-20160828-sisrussvisit02-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I have to confess that it would definitely be easier to have a Korean friend to explore food options with.\u00a0 It can be stressful.\u00a0 But I finally got around to installing Mangoplate, a food app recommended to us that has an English interface option.\u00a0 A note for friends who will use the app:\u00a0 the app, at least the English UI, uses Google maps for display.\u00a0 Google maps is\u00a0 horrendously abysmal in Korea, so assume you’ll get lost if you rely on it for pinpointing an address.\u00a0 So make sure to click directions and then select a Korean mapping app.<\/p>\n
We used it to discover a steamed ribs place, where we went to dinner with S.\u00a0 We repeated the mistake of ordering too much food for 3.\u00a0 Ribs, cold noodles, and six huge dumplings.<\/p>\n
![\"S\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-15-20160828-sunilanniesiang-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"steamed](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-16-20160828-dinner-steamedribs-withsunil01-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"S](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-17-20160828-dinner-steamedribs-withsunil02-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"success\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-18-20160828-dinner-steamedribs-withsunil03-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThere’s a trend we’ve yet to decipher. Certain restaurants seem to get really busy on certain days but not others. I’m not sure if it’s a weekday\/weekend thing for certain foods?<\/p>\n
We’ve also been appreciating the milder weekend that continued into Monday.\u00a0 A sunset view of Lotte Tower from the apartment. (It’s currently the world’s 5th tallest building?)<\/p>\n
![\"Lotte](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-19-20160826-apt-view-lottesunset-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>Lotte Tower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n And here’s another telling photo for friends who are curious about the “cram schools till 10pm”.\u00a0\u00a0 The “rush hour” in our neighborhood happens right after 10pm, when parents come to chauffeur children home from the private hagwons.\u00a0 Turns out “10pm” is because Seoul imposed a curfew on hagwons some years ago.\u00a0 It would be later otherwise.\u00a0 You can see the popularity of the corner tteokbokki lady with the children, who are eagerly crowding her stall before they go home.\u00a0 Nutritional options not withstanding, as long as there are ravenous hungry children at 10pm, we’d probably not have a shortage of late dinner options.<\/p>\n
![\"hagwon](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-20-20160830-apt-10pm-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"resident](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-21-20160830-tteokbokkilady-01-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"yum\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-22-20160830-tteokbokkilady-02-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"spicy!\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-23-20160830-tteokbokkilady-03-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Annie felt well enough one evening for us to attempt the 10 minute walk (15 at her restricted pace) to the path not far from us.\u00a0 A path we’d originally hoped to run and bike on as we settled in. We walked only a little of the path, and headed back before any discomfort.<\/p>\n
![\"path\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-24-20160829-daechipathriver02-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"by](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-25-20160829-daechipathriver03-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"selfie\"](\"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-content\/uploads\/0831-26-20160829-daechipathriver-sa-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
We also tried out the little sushi place in the building first referenced at the start of the post.\u00a0 Hole in the wall.\u00a0 Three little tables.\u00a0 We liked it.\u00a0 And it was a chance for her to have sushi (or something with a raw element) since her WBC\/neutrophils are better now.\u00a0 Before the counts go down again from the next sequence of upcoming radiation treatments.<\/p>\n