Seoulscapade

Above is an artist’s impression of our future home, the Sangdo Haemoro complex. We’ll end up in a building much like the one in the center. I suspect our view won’t be as spectacular. For one thing, the Namsan Tower in the background here is depicted at about twice its real size. The “apts” won’t be so elevated, either.

We went to see the “model” house on Sunday, but typically it’s not located near the construction site. It was across the river and up near Seoul Station.

After all the complaints we’d read, what we saw there wasn’t as bad as expected, at least not to me. The display apartments seemed much like others I’d seen. However, what is worrying people is that the materials featured in the display apartments may not be what we see some two and half years down the track. Sometimes building companies use inferior materials for the interior of the finished product. I’ll mention more on this later.

Here’s what greeted us when we got there.

Inside here are purpose built apartments, which will be torn down after the show period is over, though that building may stand for another company’s display later. There were three examples in all: 83, 109 and 142 square meter apartments. But these don’t reflect all the designs. For example, three different 109 square meter apartment types will be built, yet only one is shown in full mock up. People have to imagine the others.

Here, at the steps leading up to the entrance, it didn’t look like many people were around, which was a bit disheartening. Everyone hopes that people will be clambering to get a spot in the complex, thus raising its popularity and resale price.

These showroom presentations are where the “account” buyers have a chance to sign up for an apartment. The “account” is an official requirement for anyone who wants to purchase an apartment at a complex like ours at the showroom stage. If you have an account, you can put their name down, then wait until being selected as a buyer. Selection is usually by a kind of lottery. If you miss out, you just keep searching and put your name down for some other development, and so it goes on.

Of course, “account” buyers will be paying more than we did. We bought in early under a different system, so we didn’t need an “account.”

Perhaps some of these people below are “account” buyers, and perhaps some are like us, who have already paid a lump sum up front and are now getting an idea of what they paid for.

As soon as you walk into one of these places, you usually come to a large model of the finished development first, as you see above, surrounded by onlookers. There are buttons you can push that light up different sections on the model, grouped according to apartment size.

At this place, on the wall the left, was also a huge 3D map, with roads that lit up in different colors to convince people of the convenience of the location. At the back, under that bright advertisement right of centre, was the obligatory long row of desks fitted with computers and manned by salespeople.

I wanted to take a good picture of the model but was firmly told by a hostess that no pictures were allow. She also made it absolutely clear that no pictures were allowed of the apartments on show . . . So, here is a picture I took of what our apartment might look like.

Yes, I took in a little pocket camera with the intention of using it. Here you see part of the kitchen and the lounge area, as my wife stands look out for me on the left. Every apartment had a hostess or two to explain its features, and I guess to stop photographers like me.

Part of the reason they don’t want photographers might be because parts of the interior could change, and they don’t want people waving photos in their faces of what should have been. On the other hand, the brochure contained official pictures of some features, so I don’t know what the fuss was about.

You can see here that the designers have gone for black, gray, silver and white for their colour theme. It wasn’t exactly my thing, but we can always change what we don’t like later, and as I mentioned, it may not look exactly like this in the end. I hope the white fake-marble floor stays. I liked it’s clean, cool and white look.

Here you see the main bedroom, which is larger than the photos suggest with their narrow field of view.

The bedrooms—three in all—have wood floors. Hence, for the designers have incorporated brown tones into the colour scheme.

The bathroom in the main bedroom has a black, gray, silver and white colour scheme like the main living area.

This bathroom was a bit too small for my liking. It’s barely the same size as the other bathroom over near the entrance apartment’s entrance, which I wasn’t able to secretly photograph. That entrance bathroom was basically the same design but was done out in brown, black and white.

Since it will just be the two of us, we thought a second bathroom was a waste of space. I don’t think there is much that can be done about it, unless a lot of people complain, but I doubt many family minded people will.

In the kitchen, they had forms you could fill out with suggestions for improvements, etc. We noted a couple of things, like how the fridge space the designers allowed for did not seem deep enough for modern fridges, like the huge Klasse we currently own.

I couldn’t photograph the kitchen—always too many people. However, the above shot from the brochure shows the kitchen in the larger size apartment.

This kitchen is done by the number one company for kitchens in Korea, called Hansum. Whether that company will be involved in the final product is another area of contention. People worry that a different kitchen company will actually be used.

In contrast to the U design above, our kitchen may be of a long design, as you can see top of centre in the following floor plan.

The main bedroom is of course on the right. This is just one of three design types for the 109 square metre size.

Next, we went upstairs to see the smallest and largest apartment examples. At the top of the stairs, we inspected some open roof miniature models of most of the design types, which reminded me that we could end up in something with a quite different floor plan to the one above. There was also an open roof model of the sport and fitness centre that is going to be incorporated into the complex. Here’s what the front of that will look like.

Then we had a look at the small apartment. This is about the size of what we are living in at the moment at Prugio. It didn’t seem much smaller than the 109 square metre apartment we’d had just seen downstairs. One of the bathrooms was definitely bigger, too. Its colour theme was much the same.

The large apartment was another story.

This is the size everyone would have if they could afford it. While the small and medium apartments kind of look the same, the larger style apartment looks distinctly more expensive, with different paneling, fittings and tiles used, etc.

Of course, much of the decor you see in the picture is just for show. It turned me off, the fake opulence, the garish touches that just don’t belong in apartments even of that size—that remind you of tasteless rich people with no sense of proportion or subtlety. In the bedroom were fake-Victorian era, silvery coloured wood chairs, elsewhere tiny walls were decorated with highly ornate wall paper. I really hate that gaudy stuff. At least I won’t be living like that.

Here’s a vista looking down from near the back hills will be towards the main road.

I suspect the buildings won’t be that far apart. The impression below is probably a better representation of how close the buildings will be to each other. It shows an unnatural enlargement of the complex (probably to influence the subconscious of potential buyers) and where it’ll be in relation to the rest of Seoul.

At the moment, our present home is just past the bottom right corner of this image.

(Click for a larger view)

Tacky? Well, some of the sly presentation techniques and interior fittings were. But never you mind. Once the thing is built, if it’s done right, we should be sitting on a very lucrative piece of real estate.