Hey guys welcome back, sorry the lighting's a little dark today- it gets dark in Japan at about
4:30 p.m.. It's crazy, and it's already past dinner time. I'm filming this video late today
We had a busy day of doing chores, laundry and shopping and all that boring stuff, so I didn't vlog today, but today
I'm going to share with you guys our experience of searching for an apartment in
Korea because lots of you have been asking how our trip went and if we found a place
So if you're new to my channel, hi
I'm Sharla, welcome to my channel. I've been living in Japan on and off for a total of about 12 years now,
Maybe 13, stopped counting a while ago, but myself and my husband will be moving to South Korea next year
And we just came back from a trip from Korea
We were there to look for an apartment
So I'm gonna tell you guys all about how the searching for the apartment process went and if we found a place, when we're moving
Etc. So we had in mind which area of Seoul we wanted to live in, my husband wanted to be close to his working place
So that it wouldn't be too much of a commute everyday
So we found a station that looked like it was a good location
And we just popped in to a real estate place right near the station
We didn't really do any research on where it was good or not. We just popped in to the first one
We saw and we went in there and we told them our budget
What size apartment we were looking for and a couple other things that we kind of had on our like
Must-have list, and the guy was like "No we don't have anything like that, sorry." and we were like "Oh crap,
this is gonna be harder than we expected." so we walked down the street to another real estate agent
That was like, one minute walk away- They're all over the place
They're really easy to find and we popped in there and there was a really nice-looking old lady in there
And she invited us in to sit down. She was having lunch, and she's like "Come in sit down have some tea,
I'll be finished in a minute." Then she came over and we told her what we wanted. She's like, "Okay
let me make up a list of all the places I have that fit your wants." and
She came up with a list of so many apartments, so I don't know what was wrong with that other real estate agent
It scared the shit out of me
And I'm so glad that it wasn't true that there weren't any places for what we wanted in our price range
I guess he just wasn't managing any of those places. So she came up with this huge list of places for us to
Check out and she's like, "Okay
let's head out and look at them."
And we went straight outside, it took like five minutes for her to come up with this list and we started walking around the neighborhood
And checking out apartments. Now, I had a pretty big list of stuff I wanted. I've lived in several apartments in Japan
I kind of know what I like now.
One- I wanted there to be lots of sunlight
I like to have nice lighting in my videos and also the cats love lying in the sun
So if there's no sunlight coming in through the windows that would suck for them
And it's just nice to have some sun in your place
I find that it feels like really dreary and depressing when there's no sunlight coming in the windows, so number-one priority was some sunlight
Number two- I wanted it to be either a new building, or a place that had been freshly renovated, so new wallpaper, new floors, new
countertops, I wanted everything to look nice. I didn't want it to be like 70-style, like yellows and browns
I've seen some places like that and no thank you.
Number three-
We wanted it to have two bedrooms or a bedroom and an office, just two
Separate rooms.
Number four- we wanted it to have a separate area for the shower
Now let me explain what the majority of Korean
bathrooms look like, or at least bathrooms in
apartments. So you have the- this is all in one room- you have the sink, you have the toilet
And then you have a showerhead attached to the wall
And there's a drain in the floor, so the whole room is basically a shower
You can get the whole room wet
But what I really wanted was a little space for the shower so that the toilet and the sink area wouldn't get all wet every
Time we had a shower
So I wanted the bathroom area to be
Spacious enough that we could have our showering area here and not soak all my makeup
And the toilet paper and everything else that we had on the toilet and sink side of the washroom
That was basically all we wanted, of course we wanted it to be within like a 10-minute walking distance from the station
but that's about it so the first place we walked into was way too small for my liking and
That kind of scared me because I thought that that was gonna be the size of all the places we went to see
Keyboard-san really liked it, for some reason the size didn't bother him
the place looked nice
It was brand-new very clean looking
but
very tiny and
I just didn't feel comfortable with that size place so I said no, he tried to convince me to rent it
But I really wanted a bigger place, so we moved on to see a couple other places
But I found that there was one thing wrong with all of them, either there was no sunlight
The bathroom was tiny and we'd have to have a shower like, basically standing right beside the toilet
Or it was kind of old and there was really like, ugly wallpaper
Or the tiling in the bathroom was like yellow or something
There was just one thing wrong with all of them
And it really sucked because we found some places that we were like, "Oh this place is so great, except the wallpaper is really old
And it kind of smells gross in here," or "This place is so great, except
There's zero sunlight, and we feel like we're living in a dungeon."
so we walked around and we looked at about...
I want to say ten apartments and we actually found one that
Well, I loved right off the bat. I found it online and I told him I really want to look at this place
Can we please look at this place? It was one of the last apartments
we went to see that day, but as soon as we went to see it. I was like yes. Yes
This is the one, let's get it. It had two bedrooms, there was sunlight, it was in a decent location, it had this outdoor patio
Like big enough to have this huge
Picnic table and I figured we could have like barbecues there and the cats could go outside and enjoy the patio
I just loved it. I loved the place, but Keyboard-san didn't like the location. He thought it looked kind of sketchy
He thought it might not be safe to walk at night
It was kind of, we had to walk through lots of back roads to get to it
So he was a little iffy about it and it took me about two hours to convince him that we should take this place so
We told him we wanted it and we started signing the papers for it
We were like halfway through the papers and the lady called the other real estate agent that was like the one managing the place
So she called them, and she told them that we were filling out the papers and we'd be done soon
And she was like "Oh, sorry this place has already been taken by someone else." and I was so angry
Because I had fallen in love with that place. It was so nice
It was just perfect for me
But yeah someone else got it as we were halfway through writing the papers for it so that was a no-go
I was really pissed off, and I said, I just wanted to go home. I didn't want to look at any more apartments
I was so mad. So we went home and we went back out the next day and
Did the whole process over again, looked at about seven more apartments and no luck I didn't like any of them
So we decided to give up on that station altogether
And we just kind of picked a random one that we both knew really nothing about we didn't know the area
We didn't know what it looked like
but it was still in a decent location that was close to his workplace so we tried a new place the third day and
We walked around and looked at about
Seven apartments, I think that day, and we found two that we liked one was a little bit more expensive and the decor was
Interesting. I don't...I wasn't really a fan of it, it wasn't horrible
it was pretty much brand new. One person had lived in there prior
to us and they were in there when we went to see the apartment actually so we got to talk to them about it
How do you like living here? How's the neighborhood? It was really cool that we could do that
I actually...I saw some hemp seeds on her counter
And I was like *Gasp* "Those are the hemp seeds that I eat! I get those from Canada every time I go home."
But she's like "Oh, I bought those in Canada. We used to live there", and I was like
"Oh, no way. Where?" And she's like "Victoria." and I was like "No! It's where I'm from!"
And we both like "Whoa! That's so weird."
So we had like a good conversation with her, and she was really nice, and we liked the place
But there there are a couple of things that we weren't like, the living room was a little bit too small and the decor like
I said it's kind of weird. It was a bit too colorful for me
I kind of prefer like everything to be white, the walls to be white, the floors to be like grey
I like everything to be really
Toned-down colors because I find it's easier to decorate, but we thought about getting that place
But then once we went to see a couple more
We found one that we really liked and we decided to go for it, so we signed the papers and we got a place
Yes, search was over after three days of
Many, many miles of walking, we finally found a place and we're both pretty happy with it
It is smaller than what I wanted
But it's brand-new, lots of light comes in, the floor is heat up, the cats are gonna love the warm floors
If you don't know that, in Korea they have a system where water runs, hot water runs under the floors
And they heat up they get really warm, and it's so nice in the winter and I just know the cats are gonna
love it. It's got two bedrooms...
"Bedrooms". They're very small, one of them is gonna be a bedroom, one of them will probably be my office
It's got a kitchen area, and it's got a little living room area
And then it's got a bathroom with its own little shower area so it won't have to soak the toilet
And that's about it
One bad thing about it is it has zero closet space, there are no closets in it
So we're gonna have to go to Ikea or something and buy some wardrobes
I guess, I don't know, I've never done that before I've always had places with closets, so I don't really know what's available
So we're kind of like freaking out about that right now because he has lots of clothes, more clothes than I do
And if we can't find a place to keep them all nice and tidy it's gonna look really messy all the time
So we're gonna look into that and find some good furniture
Another thing is the tiling in the kitchen is green. It's not like 70s green
It's brand new, so it looks nice, but
it's green so
I don't know, decorating the kitchen, it's gonna be kind of hard, I think, but it's okay
Those are like total trivial things, and I don't really care too much
We're just really happy to have a place and the neighborhood is nice. It's really close to his work and
We walked around the neighborhood. We had lunch and just did some shopping in the area
Got a feel for it, and I think I really liked it
And I'm really excited to move so we will be moving at the end of February
So we've got
Two and a half months left in Japan to pack up all this stuff, get the cats ready, lots of you guys were asking
How we are going to move the cats to Korea or if we're gonna bring the cats with us to Korea of course I would
Never move anywhere if I couldn't bring the cats with us, so yes
We're bringing the cats
And it's actually a quite a simple process at least it's supposed to be from what I've seen
because Japan is recognized as a rabies free country and
The big problem when you're bringing pets over to another country is if they're coming from a rabies free country or not
If it's not rabies free they need to get rabies shots. They need to get rabies tests
They need all this official paperwork to say that they do not have
Rabies because we're coming from Japan and the cats have been in Japan their whole life. They don't need all that so I think
All they need is a health check. I don't even know if they need the health check
I'm gonna look into it some more, but it looks like it'll be really simple
We're gonna have them on the plane with us like at our seats. I don't trust
The cargo department where they put pets, I've heard horror stories of like it not being heated properly and the pets
Freezing to death or, I don't know I just do not feel comfortable with my pets being in the cargo area
So we're gonna make sure that they're with us in the seat
And if for some reason I can't get a plane ticket where they can be with me in the seat
I'll like go down to Southern Japan and I'll take a boat over to Korea
They'll come with me on the boat. So don't worry the cats will be fine
They might be a little freaked out on the plane, but I think it's gonna be okay
It's, it's a pretty short plane ride
I think it's a little under two hours usually
I want to tell you guys a little bit about the pricing system for renting a place in Korea
I'm not a pro, this is my first time ever looking for an apartment there
But from what I've seen they have this system where you give them lots of money up front
And then you will receive all of that money back when you move out so it's a deposit that you completely receive back
Whereas in Japan you'll give them a lot of money up front
Most of the time you won't see much of that back at all, they will say they need it for cleaning
even if you leave the place spotless...
Crazy cats. Even if you leave the place spotless when you move out
They'll say like "We need to replace the wallpaper. We need to replace this." even though it still looks wonderful
They'll find excuses to keep your money
but apparently in Korea from what I've heard, I checked with all my friends because I
really wanted to make sure that we'd be getting the money back and apparently you get it all back when you move out and
The more you give them the cheaper they'll make your rent. So for example, a couple of places we looked at they wanted
$5,000 up front and the rent was gonna be $900 a month
I'm just saying in like rough American dollars cuz won is still really confusing to me, too many zeros, but they said if you have
$20,000 an American
They will make the rent $800 a month
So the more you give them up front the cheaper your rent will be, I think that's really cool for people that have a lot
Saved up, and it seemed that that is the general system with all of the apartments. They were all like that, some of them wanted
$5,000, some of them wanted $10,000. They were all completely different, and then I was looking at some fancy places and they wanted like
$100,000 up front so we scratched those off the possible list very quickly
but if you do have a lot of money saved it's kind of a cool system because you can give it to them and
Some places you can get the rent for free if you give them enough money up front you can live in there for free for
A couple years move out get all your money back
It's really cool. It's a neat system I think. So yeah, that's how it works in Korea
I'll keep you guys updated on the moving process
and the cats and everything, just for any of you guys that are interested, maybe thinking about moving there and
Let me know if you have any more questions. I will see you again tomorrow for a regular vlog. We're going to Costco
Hopefully picking up some food for christmas. I don't know what they're gonna have, I
Hope they have like pumpkin puree or some things, I can try to make some kind of pumpkin dessert
Cranberry sauce would be nice, and then we're gonna set up the tree. Yeah, I don't even know where it is
It must be in my closet somewhere, but I'm looking forward to that so I'll see you guys again tomorrow. Thanks for watching. Bye
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