That is our building. It is thirteen stories high. Using the elevator to move a household full of belongings is not really the most efficient idea since the elevators in our building here are smaller than American ones and you would be an elevator hog for the day. Not a great way to make nice with the neighbors. So they use an outdoor lift. This is what it looks like from the outside...
...and this is what it looks like when your possessions are hurtling up...
and up at your face.
The extendable rail was taped, yes taped, to the guardrail around our window. The men at the bottom would load some of the things, hurtle it up, then the men at the top would unload over the rail and hurtle it back down. It was pretty neat actually. They don't secure anything on the pallet so I found it slightly amazing that none of our stuff fell off, especially as fast as it was going. It goes way faster than an elevator. But they did a great job. They were the best movers we've had so far. Considering you have two different sets each time you move (one on the shipping end and another on the receiving end) that makes them #1 out of 10. Not bad.
Moving on...hah hah. I love bad puns! There is a little shortcut road that is more like a trail that we take to the camp/post here. It's a pretty nice walk except for a couple places where there are some unpleasant smells, but that's just part of life in Korea. (I kind of think that's really why so many of them wear the surgical masks all the time.) It's all downhill the way there but you know what that means! You got it, all uphill the way back. And it is not a little hill. So it kind of sucks when I make a grocery trip. Here's a photo from the top of the trail.
It's much better in person. I'll take this moment to mention the garden you see in the foreground. Korea is not vast, and so heavily populated that land is scarce. They use every available piece to grow food. You're driving down the highway you look down and there's a garden on the side of the road. And I don't mean like in front of someone's house. It's just free space so someone planted food. It's awesome. And in the cities if it's not food it's flowers. Here's my favorite part of the walk.
This ajuma grows beautiful flowers and I love walking by here. I saw the tiniest hummingbird here a few times. The first time I saw it I thought it was bee, then realized what I thought was the enormous stinger on it was its beak!
Okay, so back to our apartment life. They're big on recycling around here. We even have a box downstairs for clothes recycling. I have no idea what they do with them but that's what the English translation on one says. Here's our complex's recycling unit.
You have to sort it yourself. You also have to buy specially labeled bags just for trash and dump all food waste separately in yet another trash area. (I usually try to make Matt do it. It's pretty vomitous as you can imagine!) I'm not sure what they do with the food. I've heard both composting and pig slop, so I don't know. The man that grows the garden in the picture above digs through the food waste containers every morning so I know what he does with it. At least, I hope so....
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