Good afternoon everybody, it's Cory here.
I'm going to do my official apartment tour for you guys.
Today, I'm doing it with the GoPro here, that way you guys get the nice wide angle.
Plus we're going to walk through it, so that way you get the first person perspective of
experiencing my apartment building.
So where are we?
We are in the Thuy Khue ward, and that is here in Hanoi city.
So you can see, this is just what the main road looks like out here.
There's traffic, and what not, just normal everyday Vietnamese life.
But then just off from the main road, is this little alley here.
You can see this little gate thing.
This blue building right here is my apartment building.
And it's right next door to another building that has a kindergarten/preschool kind of
a thing right here on the 1st floor.
And there's some other residences around this area.
This is like a nice little back area from the main road.
So this is where I live, and it's $350 a month for a studio apartment in here.
And included is parking, so here's a pad lock, this is gated parking.
That lone black Yamaha Nouvo is the one that I've been renting, it's $50 per month.
So you get a nice secure place to lock up your vehicle.
And it is protected underneath this roof thing here.
Alright, let's go take a look inside.
So we have to use keys.
Check out my TARDIS keychain.
So this is the first floor, this is essentially like a lobby where the building owner just
like chills out and handles business here.
What I really like about a lot of Vietnamese homes and businesses are the altars here,
to pray for fortune, wealth, health, and all those other good things.
They put money, or cigarettes, alcohol, like all kinds of stuff here as offerings.
But this is kind of cool you can see this as soon as you come in.
And there's always nice fresh flowers and stuff here.
My unit is up on the 2nd floor.
First floor is just stuff for the office lobby area.
And there's an actual unit in here that they're doing like rennovations right now.
Yeah, they're in there, I think they're painting one side of the room.
Anyway, let's go up.
So there's two units per floor, except for the top floor, which is a single unit.
The one on the left is somebody, my neighborh, whom I haven't met yet.
The one on the right, here, this is mine.
Take off your shoes, because I'm Asian, and I am in Asia.
And that's how I roll all the time, it doesn't matter where in the world.
So this is it guys.
This is my apartment right here.
You can see it's a Studio apartment, it's got the bed, the living room, and the kitchen,
all in one big space.
It reminds me of being back in college, kind of.
Except in college, I shared a room like this with another roommate.
I only have one lamp on right now, which is that corner lamp right there.
So it does get a lot of natural lighting, I got three giant windows and one smaller
one over there.
And these windows are amazing!
I don't need to use electricity, really, at all, during the day time for lighting.
This is more than bright enough for me to like do work or write or whatever.
And it's overcast right now.
So on like a sunny day, it's really nice and bright.
In the morning, the sun comes in from this window over here, at an angle, so like all
of the kitchen and stuff is all lit up.
Yeah, so it's just like a really nice, well-lit place by natural light.
I'm going to go ahead and show you anyways, what it looks like with the lights on.
There's the sconce lights, which I usually use at night and that's it.
And there's like these recessed lighting things in the corner.
There's the other one.
Each corner has recessed lighting up in the top.
And then these main ones.
So this is what it's like with all the lights on, except for that lamp, I didn't turn that
one on.
So you can see, it's just very well-lit, it's a nice, bright space.
And I'm very happy about it.
Although I never really use any of these lights.
Except for the sconce light, that's the only one I use at night.
I'll leave these on for now, for the video so you can see everything.
So where do we start?
First, let's start with the kitchen.
So this is the kitchen space, as you can see, it's very simple, but it's clean and that's
why I chose this place.
It comes with this little wine rack thing that I'm going to eventually have some wine
in there.
Maybe.
It came with all the cutlery, and pots and pans and stuff.
So what's interesting is this is not just a storage space, but it is a drying rack,
like physically the water will drip through the bottom here.
Like this.
Right into the sink area.
So that's kind of neat.
I just washed these, so they're all unorganized and weird looking.
So that's that.
I've got my little simple spices and whatever, olive oil and salt, pepper, soy sauce, red
chili pepper powder.
It's like the essentials.
I definitely need to go shopping for more herbs and stuff.
It definitely has this nice vented range hood here.
It has a light.
Let me turn this other light on here.
So, it's nice and clean, everything is clean.
Very powerful hood.
And the only weird thing, I guess, for a lot of people, would be that there is a hot plate
that came with the place.
But who likes cooking with a hot plate?
I don't.
I like actual flame.
So there is a propane tank here, it's got a phone number on there so you just call them
up when you're empty and they'll drop off a new bottle.
And it's like, I don't even know, it's like $12 or $13 or something like that to get a
new tank of propane.
So this is how I like to cook.
Definitely have to have flame for maximum control of cooking.
Yeah, and so I'm very happy with that.
There's a few more frying pans and stuff down there.
There's empty space.
This is a drawer for utensils, I'm going to have to like get my own set of stuff.
This all came with the apartment.
This knife is so old and worn and all that.
I had to sharpen it a few times to get it to even cut.
I'll have to get my own stuff that way when I move I can just bring it with me.
This is extremely important guys, I wouldn't drink tap water in Vietnam, even though they
say it's safe to liek brush your teeth - that's fine, I do that...
but I would never drink or make ice cubes out of any tap water in Vietnam.
Always use the purified water from the water company.
This is included in my apartment.
Whenever it's empty, I just let the lady downstairs know, and then they bring another one up and
replace it for me.
So that's included.
There's a little breakfast nook kind of a table here.
Everything's like hardcore stone.
Like this is actual hard, solid stone.
Same with this little desk here.
I guess it was all like a set or something.
But it's all solid, heavy stuff.
Got a microwave, got a little mini fridge here.
This is big enough for one person, definitely.
Got some stuff in there.
Don't have much in here.
Just got some eggs, and doenjang and gochujang.
Two hard boiled eggs.
And like an onion in there.
This is some hot sauce.
And I also got the Mam Tom, this is the fermented shrimp sauce that they use in Vietnam.
And to a lot of foreigners, this is disgusting, but to me, this is freaking fantastic to add
to anything.
To like really boost the flavor.
I love salty, shrimpy, fermented kind of stuff.
I guess that's the Korean in me.
There is this desk and I can easily just sit here and work and whatever.
And have a nice view, but I tend to do all my editing and working from the coffee table.
And so what I'll do is I'll slide the sofa a little bit closer to the coffee table, and
then slide the TV - which was included in the place - all the way over
and then I'll just connect the laptop to the TV with HDMI, that way I can see whatever
videos I'm making on full screen, or if I'm watching YouTube or Netflix, I can just put
it on the TV.
So that's kind of like my own little chill office space.
I don't even use that desk.
I don't think I've even sat in that chair one time.
This is the wardrobe, it's very big.
And I don't have much stuff.
So let's go ahead and open this up and see what it looks like.
So this is my wardrobe right here guys.
So as you see, I just have some shirts hanging here, I have two long sleeve shirts in there,
plus two windbreaker jackets for when it gets a little bit chillier in the winter.
Laundry basket, in the drawers, there's like some socks and underwear.
Some slacks hanging there, got my shorts folded up.
The check in luggage bag and my backpack.
And that's it.
This is what I came to Vietnam with from Korea.
I didn't bring any winter clothes, there's really no freezing cold winter here.
In Hanoi, it does get a little bit chilly in the winter, but not enough that I would
need to bring a super padded down jacket, and multiple layers of sweaters and all this
other stuff.
So I just kept it super simple.
Over here, we have more actual stone shelving.
This unit is extremely heavy, I tried moving it, and I'm afraid to break it.
But it is real stone, you can see all the veins and stuff in the stone there.
This is where I just store some random stuff, I usually charge things here.
There's an outlet right there, I charge my cellphone or the GoPro, camera batteries,
whatever.
I brought my tripod, soft lights, stuff like that.
Over here, this is where the magic doesn't happen because I am single and I just moved
to Vietnam.
So yeah, there's just sleeping that happens here.
And it's a relatively stiffer bed, mainly cause it's just a mattress only, there's no
Temperpedic foam mat or anything on top of that.
It's very standard.
Maybe later on, I'll get a Temperpedic thing.
Over here is the vanity.
And this is where, you know, like I wax up my hair or whatever.
Use deoderant, Q-tips, etc.
I don't think I have anything in here.
This is the helmet that came with the moped rental.
007 Fishbone.
So this is the front door.
It's full, solid wood.
This door is so heavy.
And it has cool bracket pieces that you can still see there, holding the wood pieces intact.
This is a very nice, heavy wooden door.
Very solid.
So over here, the last thing we haven't seen yet is the bathroom area.
This glass thing with the column thing and these slats, I dunno, it's really strange.
Whoever designed it, I have no idea why they chose that.
But it is functional.
Turn on the light here.
There's me.
So there's this light, and there's the ceiling light with the fan on, but if I turn the fan
on, it's very loud.
So you guys will probably will get annoyed with that.
I'll just keep it off for now.
There's two kinds of magic that happen in here, first one is where I make myself look
presentable and brush my teeth and shave and stuff like that.
And the other magic is the toilet, this is where I pray I don't blow my colon out.
And what's funny is that it's in this curve thing, in that pillar area that we saw from
the outside.
And this is lined with like quartz or something like that, you can see the shimmery facets
of it.
But, it's all solid, the entire apartment all the walls are cement.
Yeah, I have no problems with the toilet, it flushes great.
The shower has good water pressure, hot water is almost instant.
Speaking of hot water, the boiler is up there above the sink in the kitchen, and it's always
on.
There's the air conditioner, which is on now, thank god.
Yeah, so this is my simple bathroom.
Oh, I wanted to mention, there's these steps, which also have actual stone.
But there's this like gravel pathway in here for some design element, I don't know why.
And then I showed this to my brother, the photo of the bathroom, and he immediately
was like "That's a shower mat cut in half on the steps."
I didn't even realize that.
But that is what it is.
And it actually helps because when I come out of the shower, it is actually a little
bit slippery right here.
So I'll just leave that there until maybe I find something prettier or just get rid
of it entirely, I don't know.
We'll see.
Yeah, so it's a very functional studio apartment space, especially for someone like me who
is single and living by myself, I have no kids or pets or anything like that.
I don't have a lot of belongings or property, so it's a very nice space.
$350 a month.
Utilities are included, except for electricity.
So the windows, let's take a look outside the windows and see what's going on.
So what I really like about the windows is this old feel, like it's all wood, and this
is all original old glass.
You can tell because it's got some imperfections and warps to it, so when you're looking out,
things kind of skew and distort.
But this is like, I don't know exactly how old it is, but it's very nice and solid and
I love the fixtures.
Unlock it that way.
Little latch down here.
This is on the side of the house, it opens up fully like this.
There is the neighbor's building right here, and some barbed wire and stuff like that.
I don't really ever open this window, except when letting a cross-breeze through.
So you can see there's some nice French-style villas right over there.
They're the ones that face the main road, so this is the back side of them.
So you got some nice little green palm plants right there.
It's very chill.
You can hear some construction, I'll show you guys what's going on behind my apartment.
Gotta shut this window over here.
So we'll go over to this window, take a look out it.
So when I moved in they were actually already doing the construction and I thought it was
going to be really insane.
But as you can hear and see, it's super tame, there's just a guy hammering over there, the
crane is way over there.
When I first moved in all the construction stuff was actually right here.
But they were almost finished, so I came in right at the right time, when they finished
working directly behind here.
And for the past week or so, they've been over there.
I think these guys are going to be here for another month, or two.
What they're doing is, as you can see over there, there's like this sewage drain canal
for all the rain water and sewage - well, yeah I guess some sewage too - but you can
see it's all trashy looking and whatever.
It doesn't smell right now.
But that was this entire back lane, was that.
And so what they did was they dredged it out, and put in all kinds of sewer pipes and stuff
like that.
And then they filled it in with cement, and what I'm told is that they're going to eventually
pave all of this turn it into a little back road here.
So that's the view behind my apartment.
It's got a nice view of a normal Vietnamese neighborhood.
You can see here, there's some dogs, at night bats fly around.
When it rains, it's very pretty looking, cause all the rain is coming off of all the awnings
and rooftops, like waterfalls.
So it's very interesting.
This is my place.
This is what the outside looks like, it's got the sun-faded blue.
Ewww man, those panels are dirty, I'll have to clean that somehow.
So it's very chill, I thought this was going to be way worse, but it's gone by very quickly
and the construction crew is not loud at all.
Ok, and there's like 2 more things I wanted to show you in the apartment, and then I'm
going to go show you some of the shared stuff that's part of this building.
So first thing I wanted to mention is the art that is framed.
This came with the buildings.
Let's take a look at it.
So you can see a better view of it.
It's a guy, who's sort of buff looking, looks like a Marine or something.
And some other guy who actually looks like my friend Alex, from England.
And they're pulling a TV apart, I guess, a really old Sony TV with the picture of a girl
who looks like she's in a porn.
I have no idea where this came from or why whoever used to live here decided to print
and frame this.
This was on the wall when I moved in.
So that's weird picture #1.
Weird picture #2 is over here.
I'm going to eventually change this stuff guys, don't worry.
I've only been in here for just 2 weeks.
This one is from haha168.com, it was printed as you can tell.
It looks like two guys lifting a statue and they're using their hands on the actual breasts
to prop up the statue.
So another weird framed picture, I have no idea why.
The other piece of artwork over there on the far wall, that's an actual relief painting
of some flowers.
It's actually proper artwork, someone actually physically made this.
It's real.
It's not printed.
Alright, so where's my washing machine and stuff like that?
Let me tell you, it's up on the roof.
And the roof is a shared space for all the tenants and the washing machine and the dryer
and all the clothes lines, you can hang towels and blankets and whatever, all of that up
there is shared space.
So let's go take a look.
Here's my shoe rack.
Let's go upstairs.
This place is only 4 stories high.
All the steps are real stone, and the handrail is all solid dark wood, very nice.
There's a sky light.
Hello!
She's the cleaning maid.
There's the washing machine, and she's the cleaning maid.
Hello!
She does the cleaning of the bed materials, and comes in twice a week to wipe the floors
and mop and take out the trash and stuff like that.
She's very helpful.
So this is the roof space, it looks more like storage.
These are all extremely dusty.
But you can hang towels and stuff like that here.
Over here are two drying machines, this one I noticed when I opened it, it's stuffed with
old stuff.
It's like a storage thing.
This one functions very well, I haven't used an American style dryer since America, more
than 5 years ago.
So it was interesting using that the other day.
It dried my clothes like instantly.
In Korea, I've always just hung my clothes.
You know, if I wanted to, I could come up here and chill out and stuff.
It's the roof of the building, so you can see the shape of it, and they built this corrugated
tin structure on top as well to protect where I'm standing from rain.
Over here, you can see, there's the main road right?
And that's where I started this video, at the beginning of the little alley way.
So these are the buildings that face the front of the road.
And they absorb all that noise from the main road, so I don't have to hear it, plus I'm
on the backside of this building so I don't even hear it anyways.
So you can see, this is very cool architecture.
I really like the tiling going on, it's over here too, let me show you.
Yeah, see?
This is what the back of my neighborhood looks like.
Very quiet residential area, there's a Buddhist temple right over there.
And in the distance, you can see the Lotte Tower, which in my recent Walking video, I
said it was the tallest building in Vietnam.
That is incorrect, it is the 2nd tallest tower, there is another tower that's slightly taller,
and that tower is also the largest one in all of Vietnam, not just Hanoi.
You can hear the birds chirping.
It's just very cool , very awesome.
I really like this place.
I'm so glad I found this apartment.
That's it for my apartment tour, I hope you guys really enjoyed it.
If you have any questions about like how I found this place, check out my apartment hunting
video here.
And if you have any other questions, leave it down below, I'll definitely answer after
everything to the best of my knowledge.
So thanks for watching guys, please give this a Thumbs Up, please Share it, please Subscribe,
check me out on Patreon.
And see you guys in the next video!
Bye!