Nerdy Korean Glasses

South Koreans have some of the sweetest and nerdiest eyewear around. It was something that we noticed on our students, coworkers and everyone on the street since we first arrived. In the elementary schools, a lot were bright colors or strangely patterned so they fell into the 'so bad they're cute' category. When we made the move to high schools, we were surrounded by more 'stylish' versions of Korean glasses that moved up into the category of 'so bad they're awesome.' Seeing our students' glasses daily, we started to get a little jealous. Judy even made a girl hand her glasses over so that she could try them on.


We knew that non-designer glasses were super cheap here, but we just never managed to go in, choose a frame and get the eye test. In Ulsan, things like that seemed too daunting without a co-teacher, and buying a pair of stupid glasses seemed too trivial to bother our co-teachers with. In Seoul, on the other hand, we've had zero troubles doing things on our own, which has been a great change.


So, without fear one day, Andrew headed into Tomato Optical in the bottom of the apartment building next to ours (He was looking for glasses and he loves tomatoes, so it was meant to be). In under 10 minutes, he had chosen his glasses, gotten an eye test and was told to come back to pick them up in 30 minutes. The frames cost a whopping 10,000 KRW and he chose the most expensive lens option for a grand total of 40,000 KRW ($35.00). You definitely get what you pay for with glasses. They work alright during the day, but vision gets a little hairy after dark.


After Andrew got his, Judy got jealous, of course. A few days later, while we were out walking she found her pair of nerdy Korean glasses. Hers ended up costing less than Andrew's and were made in much less time. Needless to say, she is still trying to get used to them. So far, she's worn them for one full day and they gave her a headache. The following pictures are only of Andrew's new glasses. As soon as Judy acclimates to hers and is able to wear them, we'll post more pictures...

Close-up


Self-timer shots before hitting the town one night

The Ground Floor

The first floor of our building (and the buildings around us) is filled with shops, businesses and restaurants. As of yet, we have only tried a few of the restaurants, but plan on trying them all soon. Coming from the 4 story building with nothing but a parking lot on the first floor in Ulsan, the bustle and smells (both delicious and sickening) are a welcome change!

Liquor Beer Cabin!

This is a Seoul based bar chain that is everywhere. We haven't been to this particular location yet, but we have visited one. It is the typical Korean pub offering the usual for drinking and the standard dried and fried plates for eating. On our visit, we sampled the fried potato platter and a few flavors of the saucy fried chicken. All were quite tasty, so it's been a comfort to know that a late night/early morning fried feast is a short elevator ride away.

Beer Camp would be way better than English Camp

And, as usual, the cabin theme is a little lost on Koreans. The outside is like a log cabin, and there are mounted animals on the walls inside, just like there should be, but the Liquor Beer Cabin's logo is a scorpion. While there are scorpions that live outside of deserts, we're pretty sure they aren't living in areas where people build log cabins...

You think Dior is good, give Dior² a try...

A popular noodle soup joint

This was the first restaurant in our building that we tried, and we were pleased. The food was good and extremely cheap. The best part, you don't place your order with the waitress that's walking around, you order and pay at a vending machine.

Travel agent


Hair shop


Two seafood restaurants

This place is next to the door we use most often to enter the building, so we walk by everyday and enjoy the delicious aromas. We also enjoy watching the employees sleep in the lawn chairs out front and socialize with the neighboring restaurateurs. We tried it for the first time the other night and were pleasantly surprised to find out it offers many of our favorite Korean soups.

The main entrance

The lady that runs this boutique changes the window display at least every 30 minutes. The only time we pass by and see the same outfits hanging is after they've closed.

The butcher

Entrance into the parking garage. You'd think that since the first floor is filled with shops and restaurants that the parking lot would be in the basement, but you're wrong. Those two garages are car elevators to take vehicles to the parking on floors 2 and 3.

Hardware store


Movie rental and book store


Another hair shop


Another boutique


Bicycle shop


This octopus restaurant is also usually pretty crowded.



A cod soup restaurant


And, this seafood restaurant brings us back to Liquor Beer Cabin!
The end.

Judy's Apartment

Fortunately for us, Judy's school got her an apartment that we both are able to live in. The unfortunate part of it is that, while the office of education placed us in schools near each other (30 minutes apart), they failed to mention to the schools that we were a couple and we'd at least like to live near each other. By chance, we both are the first students in our apartments, so it would have been super easy for our schools to find apartments close to each other or give us an apartment together. Instead, Andrew's school got him one right near his school, and Judy's school picked one on the outskirts of town, 30 minutes in the opposite direction of Andrew's school. The location and commutes aside, the place is pretty awesome. It's a loft apartment on the top floor of a 10 story building. Big city living at it's finest, almost...

The elevator and stairs

The cage (as we put it) where an old man sits and sleeps all day. He's employed by the building somehow, but we're not quite sure. Security guard is probably the closest title, but we know that's not what he does. He is 'the man in the cage,' that's all we know...

The mailbox

That's us on the right!

The lock is really stupid. You have to insert that key, then twist the knob to lock or unlock the door.

The inside handle is much more normal

(And we have a sweet hotel lock!)

The entry way

Shoe closet, hall closet, storage closet and linen cabinet

Judy's closet and our big ass window

The only chair and the island

(When Judy's co-teacher moved her in, she was told that the island is her kitchen table and desk.)

The kitchen


The kitchen and the loft rail

The awesomely decorated dorm refrigerator.

This is a one person apartment in Seoul, which means that an adult lived here before us and that adult thought it was an OK idea to cover the refrigerator with these stupid stickers. Puffy kissing dog stickers on the freezer, and fuzzy strawberry stickers on the fridge, duh!

The hallway (and kitchen) with the bedroom door closed...


...and with the bedroom door open!


The bed and dresser

Those bars extending from the floor to the (low) ceiling make up Andrew's really sweet closet.

View from the bed



The bathroom

Sink, shower and mirror

While the shower still soaks the toilet, it's a much better setup than our last bathroom

The tiny washer



Our view

*Sadly, after a month, we are still in the process of moving in. We're close now, just missing a few key items. So, once we finish that, we will upload photos showing an apartment that people actually live in.