Where in the World is Yongsan-gu?

South Korea, you say? Quarantine for two weeks, you say? In a very small apartment, you say? We say – why not?

We have felt really lucky that were are able to quarantine in our Airbnb apartment. It was a little tricky getting all our luggage up the narrow stairs when we arrived from the airport, but we’re happy for the view of the street that a small second-floor patio has given us. Plus, there have been flooding monsoon rains falling basically since we arrived, so at least we have no flood concerns on the second floor!

We have a living area, two small bedrooms, and a galley kitchen that is large enough for us to cook comfortably. The huge selling points for us: a bedroom that is not also the living room, a 3-burner gas stove, a washing machine, and a refrigerator/freezer that is larger than dorm-sized. All of these were hard to find when we first started our Airbnb search in Seoul.

Apartments here typically are small as the cost of living in Seoul is high, the cost of housing being a major contributor. One 2019 survey ranked Seoul as the 4th most expensive city in the world. (New York City was ranked at #9.) In 2019, the average living space per person in South Korea was only 355 square feet! By one estimate, in NYC the average square feet per person is about 575. In that context, finding a two-bedroom apartment in Seoul for a reasonable price per month feels really fortunate.

Our district is Yongsan-gu, which houses a large U.S. military base. It is also known for the neighborhood Itaewon, a well-known international hang-out and the home of Seoul’s only mosque. Despite our proximity to a military base, our little street seems mostly to have non-military pedestrians and shops and bars that cater to a Korean clientele. When we can move around freely, we expect to get a better sense of the area. For now, we have enjoyed watching passers-by eat at the food truck that sets up each night and the gatherings at the small, open bars across the street. There is some traffic and pedestrian noise, but for a commercial city street it’s pretty manageable.

Although we’ve enjoyed restaurant delivery service to taste many popular Korean dishes, we have also been cooking, albeit with only these two pans available to us!

We’re also cooking with no oven, as evidently it’s rare for a Korean apartment to come with an oven. Thank goodness for the gas stove! Roasting has been our usual go-to in recent years, so we have been making a lot of sauteed veggies instead. The bigger limitation to creative cooking is the challenge of getting a variety of groceries, which hopefully will cease to be a limitation with the end of quarantine.

It will tell you something about the challenges of re-learning to cook in a new place when I say that I was super-excited to figure out what I could buy to make pancakes. Even after researching, I think I still ordered the wrong kind of flour, but I made it work! I also realized belatedly that I don’t have any measuring cups, so I’m using a recycled plastic food container that is roughly the size of one cup. As excited as I am about trying lots of new foods, there’s also something to be said for knowing you can access familiar comfort foods. Though they are tiny and in a very small bag, I even found chocolate chips!

All in all, our quarantine experience hasn’t been too bad. Our little apartment has been a good place to stay for the past 14 days. We plan to be here at least through the middle of October, and then we’ll decide whether to stay or to rent another place. Of course, if we move we will lose our super-helpful landlord, Han, so that is a consideration.

Having said all that, we are now counting the hours until we are free to move about the country! With our next post, we hope to start telling you about our travels outside of our apartment walls. To Yongsan-gu and beyond!