Caves, Seoul, and St. Patty's

              Blogging is not my calling. I rarely ever write; in fact, I'm only writing now to avoid doing my dishes.  That being said, I have a lot to update everyone on! However, because I'm lazy, it may be short (well, we'll see).

              A few weekends ago, Francesca and I went to Samcheok, a city on the coast. It was about a two hour bus adventure to the cave we were going to. The cave, Hwanseongul, was the most peculiar cave I have ever been to. First, it was MASSIVE. The chambers could fit buildings. There was no guided tour, but a railed walkway that everyone shuffled through. The second peculiar thing was the juxtaposition between the cave formations (some only present in this one cave in the whole world) and the neon lights that were added to make the 'tour' more interesting.  

If you're wondering, is that a rainbow? Yes. Yes it is. It was the Vegas of caves really. The third thing that made it so strange was the Christian motifs. You did hear me right. Each chamber you go through was named things like "the Chamber of Desire," "the Chamber of Love," etc. Jokingly, Francesca and I were like, "dang, we are sinning or something." Two seconds later we stumble upon this:

I

The Bridge of Hell. The sign says something about how we have been sinning in the cave and in our lives and we must cross the bridge to cleanse ourselves. Also, I'm not sure why the bridge's mascot is a mummy, but it is. Who knew mummies were rampant in Hell? After this bridge we crossed the Bridge of Confessions, which forgave us for our past transgressions.

After this, we saw a stalactite that looked like the Virgin Mary. It was actually creepy how much it looked like her. Nevertheless, I felt pretty pure and holy after our trip to the cave. 

            The next week my co-workers and I headed to Seoul. I still don't like Seoul, but I was going to meet up with one of my Cornell friends Hatcher and find clothes that were big enough to fit my cherub curves. Hatcher and I went to the Korean War Museum; which had really well-done exhibits. I learned a bunch about Korea's wars; still always more to learn though. The English translations weren't the best. Afterwards, we met-up with everyone else and got Mexican food. NOM! It's very odd not eating tacos. I have to make a three hour trip to get tacos!?!?!? It's mad. The next day we went shopping, and finding American fitting clothes is still a task. It wasn't very successful, sadly. 

            FINALLY to this past weekend. It was the joyous St. Patty's; one of my favorite holidays. On Friday a few of us went out and ended up going to a Noribang with a bunch of other people. It was just a bunch of foreign girls singing. The Korean men at the place were very curious and kept coming in our room to see what we were doing. It was odd, creepy, but extremely funny. Saturday night was the big event. We went bar hopping. All of the foreign community was doing this and going to the same bars. It was so much fun! I met so many new people and hung out with people who I don't get to see very often. It was a blast. 

            Sunday and Monday consisted of a few of us trying to go to a CatCafe (you get coffee and pet cats I guess), Paul and Mary's for hamburgers, and other random things. ALL of which were closed. We had walked and taxied all over town trying to do this stuff for hours, and all of it was closed. So we settled for hot dogs and beer by our house. During the evening we went up to the park by our apartments and had a fire. Blake and Rachel (the married co-workers) play the violin and the guitar (I myself have recently acquired a mandolin which I'm learning how to play), so we brought those and had a 'jam' session. It was such a great time. We did set a bucket on fire, and I did burn myself, but it was worth it! All in all one of the best weekends since I've been here.

Lets hope there's more of those to come.

Nice blogging with you!

    <3 Stine  

  

Trips to Seoul and Such

Once again I fail at writing on a regular basis. Sorry. The good news is that my extra class that I've been teaching is finally over. The sad news is that I'll probably get an extra class again in two weeks. Nevertheless,  I've done a few trips to Seoul the past month.

The first time I went back to Seoul I went to watch The Hobbit in 4D. That's right 4D! Not only is the movie in 3D, but the seats move and they blow wind on you. It's very similar to the movie rides in Disney World. The Hobbit was a bit disappointing, but I'll always have my loyalties to Lord of the Rings first. Watching it in 4D was an interesting experience though. A one time thing for sure; it was like $20.

While in Seoul, I met up with one of my friends from Cornell. It was nice seeing a familiar face. At night we decided to see the foreigner night-life in Itaewon. Oddly enough we ran into a bunch of people I trained with, so it was nice to see them again. However, after meeting a bunch of people in Seoul, I realized how lucky I am to live in Gangneung.

First off it's a lot harder to get by with English is Gangneung, so the little Korean I know is much more than most of the people I met in Seoul. Second, I get to eat real Korean food ALL THE TIME! It's great. Also, the food in Gangneung is much better than most of the food I had in Seoul. I know it seems like I'm ragging on Seoul, but you have to understand that I don't like big cities to begin with. Seoul does have a better night life compared to Gangneung though. One of my friends is gay, so he took us to a gay bar. Gangneung doesn't have gay bars, so I've been going through gay men-detox. It was nice to get some flamboyancy back into my life for the night. :)

Then my friend Francesca and I stayed in a jinjilbang (a Korean bathhouse). That was wonderful! It's pretty much a public shower with a bunch of hot tubs. It was so relaxing. Also, you can sleep there. We slept in a sauna; which was way to hot to comfortably sleep. Koreans can sleep anywhere though and the jinjilbang proved that: the floor, a bench, a broken chair, a workout machine. It's crazy.
Okay, now on to the second trip to Seoul.

Last weekend my co-workers and I signed-up for a DMZ tour. We took the night train to Seoul; which takes 8 hours (the bus takes 3). Once again, Koreans where sleeping all over the place, so we tried to sleep on the train too. Once our 8 hour trip was over, we took the subway to a restaurant called "Butterfingers Pancakes." It's an American breakfast place. I cannot tell you how much I miss a Perkins, so I was really excited. I got an omelette with a side of bacon. It was HUGE and I couldn't eat all of it, but it was just okay and it cost about $25. ! .

Afterwards we met up with Adventure Korea, the company providing the tour. We got to the DMZ, had a shitty 'Korean' lunch and started the tour. The first stop was a park where Freedom Bridge is; the bridge connecting the North and South.

It was quite strange though, because it was a sad place. It's the DMZ, right? Yet, there was a small amusement park there. Koreans are trying to make the DMZ have a positive connotation. It's not working.

We went to one of the tunnels that North Korea had dug to try and infiltrate Seoul (there's 4 that the South has found). It was really interesting; I wish I had pictures, but we weren't allowed to take any. Don't want to give away 'secrets' of the tunnel. I mean, the North dug it, so I'm assuming they know everything there really is to know. 

Then we went to the observation tower to look at the North's capital. We could only take pictures from one spot, so the picture isn't good. Here is the capital of North Korea:

It's really small. Also, in the 80's the North cut-down all their trees for firewood. Now there's no trees. The mountains and plains look like a barren wasteland. It's like Nevada. (Sorry Nevada). They also have huge statues of the previous leaders on the base of the mountains. Can I just say that the leaders are also all funny looking: 

Point, set, match.

Our final stop was the train station that connects the North and South. The countries plan for unification, so the train is suppose to eventually connect the two capitals without have any forced-stops. Clearly right now people cannot go between the two countries freely. Does it sound like an interesting stop? Well, it wasn't. The only fascinating thing about it was the guards who controlled the entrance to the platform. They were intense.

My final comment on the DMZ is this: they are trying to make it a hopeful place; a symbol of unification. However, everything about it screams about the turmoil. A barbed-wire fence marks every part of the boarders. There are little, triangle signs with skulls on them telling visitors they can't go off the path because there are mines everywhere. Maybe one day the countries will unite, but I can't see this happening soon. The DMZ will always be a place of tension. I guess we'll see what the future holds.

Nice to blog with you!

   <3 Stine

  

  

Compilation of Short Stories

Clearly I have not written in a long while. I've been a busy beaver. In fact, this month I am teaching an extra class called "winter intensive reading." This means that I work five days a week instead of four, and for of those days I'm teaching for 8 hours with one 20 minute break. It has been and will be exhausting. So I've decided to update you on what has happened the last month or so by a few short stories/updates.

Christmas:
Although Christmas is celebrated, it is not nearly as crazy as the U.S. Therefore, we worked Christmas Eve and day.On Christmas day we went to Bon V (the foreigner bar by our house) and celebrated with some friends. One of the Korean girls who works there, Lucy (as we named her), got 'krunk.' We danced the night away and now hang out with Lucy about once a week. Yeah, Korean friend!

New Years:
The traditional New Years Eve is celebrated in Korea by doing the count-down to midnight then watching the gong in Seoul. Then Koreans drink ALL night then make their way to the beach to watch the long-honored tradition of watching the sunrise. This was also our plan. We went to WaBar for the midnight count-down; taking the drinking slow as to stay up all night. Then we headed downtown to a foreigner bar called Rush. EVERYONE was so drunk and acting like highschoolers who have never seen the opposite gender. I continued to drink slowly; which made the atmosphere pretty awful. Around 4 am we went to McDonalds with the others from the bar. At that point I was WAY too tired and annoyed by the wasted people I was with. I guess not binge drinking was my downfall and I had to go home and go to sleep. I missed the sunrise. It was really sad. The others met up with some of our Korean friends at the beach and had a blast. Oh well, next time, right?

Coffee and Obscure Songs:
Went to one of the many local cafes (I live in the coffee capital of Korea) for a coffee and to read. My ears started burning when I heard a song playing over the speakers in English. It was a song by the Plain White Ts. One from their first album before they became popular. I happen to have that album from seeing them as an opening band when I was in middle school. The only time I have ever heard that song was in my CD player, and here it was, belting over the speakers in Korea.

Set fire, to the Soup:
After a night of bar hopping, the other teachers and I decided to get Shabu Shabu the next morning for lunch. Being that none of us were on our best things went wrong rather quickly. The bowl of soup on the communal open grill at our table started to tilt from one of us bumping the table. Naturally Matt went to fix it before the soup started to boil over. The bowl was HOT. He grabbed a handful of paper napkins and grabbed the bowl's handle. The handle was so hot that the wad of napkins instantly burst into flames. There we were, in a quite, Korean restaurant at noon with a decent-sized fire at our table. We lunged for the pitch of water and poured it all over our table. The Koreans next to us quickly left.

A Real Nori Bong:
This past weekend some Koreans took us to a nori bong (Karaoke). It was extremely fun and everything you would expect. This led me to think about the nori bong Aaron and I tried to figure out a few weeks ago. The first one was really sketchy, had blacked-out door windows on each singing room, and there were not microphones. Turns out that we went to a prostitution ring that was covered by 'nori bong.' Oops.

Walking on Water and Saying Hello:
This isn't really a story, but some random things. First, the huge lake by our house/the beach has started to freeze. Naturally Koreans were walking on the water. We joined them, and a dog, and walked on this lake. It was a good time. Also, I would say at least once a day a random person will say "hello!" to us. It's only because we're white. Koreans do not do this to each other. It's kind of nice though, it makes everything feel a bit less lonely.

I'll try and write more often. I'm not promising anything though, time is going to be restricted this month. I'm also hooked on the show Sons of Anarchy; so that addiction my out-weigh blogging. Just a heads up.

Nice blogging with you!
    <3 Stine   
  

Museum Day

      First I would like to say that I have all my students back. The past few weeks have been test days for middle/high schoolers, so their classes at Chungdahm have been cancelled. This last week testing was over and my older students came back. I haven't seen them since my first week of teaching. Needless to say, I've been used to teaching elementary students; switching mind-sets to teen was a challenge. I have finally got my younger kids to like me and now I have to start all over with teens!?!?!?! My god. I'll let you know how that one goes.
      Second, the staff at the school completed their reports on the students and I have grand news! Grace, the woman in charge of facilitating the English Chip program (two of the classes I teach; the younger ones) came into my classroom, pulled me aside, and told me what she discovered. One of my classes had done the most work in their class books. She said that this is very good and doesn't happen regularly. Also, one of my students, Alex who is new to the school, likes my class. A few weeks ago I had to write a report explaining how he is handling the transition into the school and what his strengths and weakness are. Grace called Alex's mother to inform her of this progress. His mom said that Alex was really nervous about coming to the school and that he heard it was extremely difficult. However, Alex was relieved after starting the program because it wasn't as scary as he thought it was. "He really enjoys going to class." What!?!?! Hope. A student likes coming to class? MY class!?! I couldn't believe it! That has been my goal: making the kids learn something, but doing it in the most fun way I can. Point one Christine. Let's hope that I can keep it up and do even better. :)
       Finally, I would like to share what I did on Saturday. *sidenote:* Currently, I'm sitting on my indoor porch-thing with the window open; letting the cold winter air freeze my typing hands. What a view I have:

On Saturday Francesca and I decided to have a shopping/museum adventure day. We started our day walking to a local coffee shop. The weather was perfect for a hot drink, cold and grey.

Like almost every Korean I've met thus far, the man working there was more than helpful. At the end of the meal he handed each of us business cards with reward stamps on the back and said, "hope to see you soon!" I've noticed that any English a Korean knows, even if it's just "bye," they want to use it. It brings a pride to their eyes. I guess if you were forced to take a language as a child and never got to use it, you'd take any chance you have to show-off your knowledge. VERY opposite of the U.S. Not one person has yelled at me, "learn Korean!" like people in America tell foreigners to "learn English." There's my political plug; I'll leave it at that. 

     Okay, back to the story. With our bellies full we hiked steep hills to the Gangneung Art Museum. I'm not kidding about the hills: like San Francisco hills. Once we made it to the top there were three buildings to choose from. Which one is the museum? We took a wild guess, and thank god we were right. It turns out the other buildings were census offices. Although the museum was small, it only took us about 30-45 minutes to go through at a slow pace, it was a good insight to what Koreans value. Each exhibit was a compilation of local artists. Most of the works were paintings and some photographs. However, most of the subjects were flowers. Even the landscapes had a foreground of detailed flowers. Also, people (friends and family I assume) put flowers under most of the paintings. Most of the bouquets had ribbons with writing on them; which neither Francesca or I could read. At first we thought the paintings were done by people who had died, as some sort of memorial. Then we met two of the artists. Clearly they were not dead; that would have been awkward. Plus, I did not want to use my years of zombie-killing training in public. The two women gave us postcards of their paintings and had us sign their check-in books. Again, both of them pleasingly sweet. I would also like to note, that most of the art wasn't very good. Not to sound like a jerk, but the art wasn't much above a skilled high school student. Alas the experience was phenomenal and we plan to go back. We figured that the shows cycle out about every month or so.    

     The museum also had this small outdoor area where people had painted murals. All of them were of animals and they seemed to be geared toward children.

Remember the steep hills I mentioned? Well, because we were on a hill we got a pretty good view of down-town Gangneung:

 Like I said, the weather was pretty grey.
      We continued our jaunt and went down the hill to shop. The colder weather is heading its way and I needed more sweaters! As I'm sure you are aware girls in Asian are small. Luckily for me huge sweaters are in and I was able to find ones that fit just fine! Besides the sweaters, I bought a hat and some gloves. This part of the day took a few hours. However, we planned on going to the movies; which didn't start till 7 pm. We needed to kill time. What did we do? Got more coffee and food of course!
       There is this place called Princess Cafe. The sign, which I wish I took a picture of, is bright pink. The letters are cutesy and it has a picture of a stereotypical cartoon, girly crown. We were expecting a place that was very girly and glittery, but were pleasantly surprised. The cafe was more like a restaurant that was designed to look like a realistic princess chamber.

The pictures don't do it justice, but it was beautiful. The light was dim because the rooms were lit with small chandeliers and small lamps. My flash killed it really. It is really a place were you could grab a coffee and read a good book for a few hours. The waiters were dressed like shopkeepers with little caps, aprons, and poofy shirts. We ordered some spaghetti with cream sauce. It was very tasty. The spaghetti came with traditional Korean sides though: Korean salad, kim chi, and pickled radishes. Quite odd, but the flavors actually mixed well, the creaminess of the sauce with the spiciness of the kim chi. Nom.

   

  We couldn't finish a good meal in the princess world without some tea, could we? It was divine! Figuring out how to order more though was a bit of a task. Apparently there was a set menu if you ordered pasta. Clearly we did not know this. In fact, we tried to order this:

Now I'm not sure about you, but I have no idea what a "brad" is. I don't believe Koreans practice cannibalism, so we tried to order one. Alas, the menu confusion did not allow us to try a brad. We plan to go  back and figure it out. Our best guess is bread, but the waiter said something about it being with cinnamon. After our tea and our lack of brad we continued our journey to the movies.

     We saw "One Day." It's the movie with Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. I'm sure you're asking yourself, "did that come out like a year or two ago?" You are correct. Since it wasn't a blockbuster it came to Korea a bit late. I had already seen it, but I didn't mind seeing it again. It was also playing in English. I do plan on seeing a movie in Korean soon though. I know, I know, I don't know Korean so how will I understand it? I think that is part of the fun really. 

      I would also like to say that I think I'm figuring out some of this Korean stuff. Between body language and the little Korean that I know I've been able to figure out what people are saying to me. Progress, right?

Nice blogging with you!

     <3 Stine

Miscommunications

    This past week can be summed up in miscommunications. My week began with a side trip to CU, a common convince store like 7-Eleven, to buy a coffee. Francesca, my co-worker, and I purchased our items and headed for the door. The woman at the register stopped us, pointed at her phone, and began a conversation in Korean. Neither of us know Korean, so Francesca's best guess is that the woman wanted a picture of us. The woman smiled and began typing on her phone: youtube.com. Our vain giving us the wrong impression, the woman did not want a picture, but rather to show us something. She played a video which was again in Korean, about the Heavenly Mother. It took us a while to figure this out though, I honestly thought it was a ad for an airline. They kept showing people boarding planes and then flying to South Korea. Finally there were interviews of english speakers that gave us the gist, "Korea is where the Heavenly Mother is. It has become a mecca for Christians. Everyone who is truly devote should make the trip." We watched the video for about five minutes before we told her we had to go. Nevertheless she tried to invite us to her church where they, surprise surprise, worship the Heavenly Mother. It was quite a bizarre twist to our plan of buying coffee. When telling our adventure at work, we were told that this happens quite often. People will stop you in the streets to try and bring you to their church. Not sure how well that flies in the U.S., but hey, I'm in Korea, right?
     The second real miscommunication occurred on Saturday night. Aaron and I have been playing on going out for a night on the town then heading to a nori bong (Karaoke bar) with two of our Korean, bartender friends. I'll mention that we were suppose to meet these guys at 3 am when they got off of work. Okay, so we hit the town and met a bunch of Koreans at each place we went. At Bon Voyage (the foreigner bar; which ironically did not have an foreigners that night except us) we befriended the barkeeps and a man who goes by JK. We all had so much fun time together that JK plans to meet us again this weekend and bring his friends so we can all meet. I'm excited because maybe I'll gain some Korean friends to hang out with and they can show me the ropes. After we hit up a place named Clover. Clover is a bar/club. They do about 1 hour of low-key bar and then a half-hour of dance club. It's really interesting and you get the best of both worlds: you don't have to pick between going to a bar or a club. So we befriended the people who work there. In fact, they gave us free drinks which they lit of fire. The owner can breath fire and naturally wanted to lite our drinks aflame. Who wouldn't? On our way out they also gave us free James Bond beer cups; which is great because now I have more cups. By this time it was time to nori bong. We went to meet up with Sun and Cameron and they weren't there! It was only 3:05 am, so either they didn't want to wait or they changed their minds about singing. I have yet to figure that mystery out. Nevertheless, Aaron and I were intoxicated enough to continue our journey. We entered the nori bong.
     You pay per person and you get a room for your group. It's similar to a hotel where each group gets their own room to sing in. The woman working did not speak a lick of English, but we thought, "hey let's just figure it out. How hard could it be?" VERY hard is the answer. They give you this HUGE remote that only has letter in Korean and a song book which is also solely Korean. I pressed every button to try and get the TV to play something, anything, but I failed. Aaron and I worked on this for about 15 minutes, the woman working attempted to show us one button and then quickly gave up on us. It was so frustrating. Luckily, we left the room and I gave the woman my confused puppy-dog eyes and we got a full refund. Moral: next time bring someone who knows Korean to the nori bong. Now I know.
     I do have a highlight from my week though and it has to do with work! My male students are louder and more distracting than the girls, shocking right? They are usually the ones that I have to 'check' to keep class going, but they are more willing to joke with me. The ones who smart-off to me are actually my favorite. One of the boys named Kevin is one of these students. It's nice because I think he is one of the students who gets my humor and isn't afraid to laugh. The other day we were doing something, I can't remember what, but he tried to put a sticker on the wall. "Kevin if you don't take that sticker off you have to wash the whole wall." "But teacher this is my painting. It no sticker. Painting." "Kevin you crazy." "No teacher, you crazy!" "I know teachers crazy, Kevin, but you're crazy too!" Now that class openly jokes that I am crazy and I always say that it is true. Let's be honest, it isn't a lie. Okay, so to my point, at the end of class Kevin asks me if I like the color orange. I say yes because I don't care enough to go into color theories and then he begin rummaging through his backpack. All of a sudden Kevin pulls out a nectarine and says, "teacher for you because you like oranges!" Although it was a nectarine and not an orange, and he asked me about the color and not the fruit, I thought it was the sweetest thing to happen to me since I arrived almost a month ago.
     I can't say that all of my students like me or if I'm even doing a good job, but that piece of fruit gave me hope. One student seemed to like me, so I guess I'm doing something right. Needless to say, it was the best piece of fruit I've ever eaten. Perfect and sweet.

Nice to blog with you!
   <3 Stine      

1st week down!

      I can finally call myself a teacher.... officially. This past week I have had my first full week of teaching my own class. It has been quite an adjustment. We start our day walking 30-45 min. to work around 1:30 pm. Then we teach our first class at 4 pm which lasts 3 hours. We get a 20 min. break and start again. Our night ends at 10 pm when we make the trek back home. Needless to say, it makes for a long, strange day. Luckily, I do get to sleep-in more than I would at home. :)
     Highlights from class? Well, some students asked me if I was married. When I replied, "no," they said, "oh, so you're Mr. Christine then?" I giggled then thought, "I didn't realize how confused I've been about biology all these years. If I'm not married, then logically I MUST be a man." I've been shopping at all the wrong stores..... Koreans are a lot less politically correct than Americans too. Thus far many of my kids (gah, that's so cool to say!) have said something wildly offensive. For example, one student was using his pen to color-in a girl in one of the books. The boy next to him raised his hand and shouted, "teacher! He made his girl a slave. That's funny!" Oh and the examples do not stop there.
       On Friday we had the students write a skit where one person liked classical music and the other pop. They we suppose to convince each other why theirs was better. "Classical is boring. Plus, Beethoven was handicapped." "Pop has Micheal Jackson, and he's African." I don't even know where to start with that one. Anyway, it keeps you on your toes..... and values? It's just a different world. Just where I am, I'm one of the few white people. Korea is not what I would describe as diverse. People pretty much stare at me when I walk down the street.
       One of my favorite perks of my job is three day weekends. Yep, you heard that right. Three day weekends. It's grand. Aaron, one of the other teachers, invited me to go to a city where they have a themed park dubbed Toilet World. I actually really wanted to go, but my funds a bit pinched and I kind of wanted to slug around all weekend. He said it was all we dreamt of. I'm sure I will find my way there at some point. So besides slugging around like a lazy beast, I did go out on Saturday. I spent more time with Matt (another teacher and my new neighbor) which was nice. I can say for certain that he is not a murderer; not that I thought that to begin with, but I didn't know him enough to say otherwise. I also met some other foreign teachers and some of them I re-met. It was great fun.
       It is also planned that the teachers and our 3 favorite barkeeps from WaBar are going to nori bong (Karaoke) this Saturday. It should be quite the sight! Hopefully I'm smart and bring my camera.
      Speaking of cameras, I did try and add a slide show to my blog. However, I don't think it's working. Which is quite disappointing because I took pictures of my walk to work and Amanda's BBQ at the bar! Sigh, if I only knew new technology. Oh yes, I also got my phone! Check me out. However it is a used phone and quite the piece of shit. It's touch screen..... and like I've always suspected, I don't like touch screen. Oh well. Calling and texting will still be really expensive, but my number is: 010-7518-5264
     Also, I'll give you my address. Note that it is my work address. No one is ever in our building to sign for mail, so all the teachers get stuff sent to the school:

Christine Morfit
C/O Chungdahm Institute
185-3 Okchun-dong 3rd FLR
Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do
                            290-010
                      South Korea

Nice to blog with you,
     <3 Stine

My Apartment!

     When you walk into my apartment, there is a two-foot by two-foot area to take your shoes off right next to the door. Then you have to take a step up onto the apartment's floor level. You have now entered my kitchen area:

          There isn't an oven, but that thing on the counter on the right is my stove/burner. I don't have any pots or pans yet though so I can't use it. I've heard that it works though. Also, you can't drink the water here really, so I have to invest in a brita water filter here soon. When you stand in the kitchen with your back to my front door you see my bedroom/main room:

      I have a twin bed in which you can feel every spring in it. I also need to buy a mattress pad. lol. There are sliding doors between each of my rooms by the way. Similar to the paper sliding doors you see in Asian themed movies, but mine are wood and fogged glass. From this view, my bathroom is on your left:

         First off, you have to step down to get into the bathroom. Second, as you can see everything is right there. There is no separate area or curtain for the shower. There is a drain on the bottom of the floor next to the toilet where all the water pools to though. It makes taking a shower pretty tricky. Everything gets wet and the floor is wet the whole day so I can't wear socks into the bathroom. lol. I'm going to try and find a solution to the wetness problem. Anyway, then we go back into my bed room:  

       From this view, you can see the kitchen and the sliding glass doors. The only furniture I have at the moment is a closet/chest, a bookshelf, and an end table. To the left of this view is my laundry room. It is also through sliding glass doors:

         That's my boiler! Oh this is a good example of what I mean when you have to step up or down from the main floor level (look at the sliding door on your right). Those are also sliding glass windows on your left. I'm taking this picture next to my washer by the way. I didn't take a picture of it because I didn't think it was important. Now that I think about it though, my boiler isn't either. lol. Finally, here are two pictures of the view from my window: