Seoulscapade

Sigh, goodbye Bongchun-Dong.

Glorious views of Mt. Gwanak and summer rains from our apt balcony at Woosung in Bongchun-Dong

We moved out of our apartment above mid-October into a cheap place we bought in Ansan, south of Seoul. We needed somewhere cheaper and buying a place seem a much better move than renting again. I hate renting: you slave away at work for a landlord you’ve never met. It’s just throwing cash down a black hole.

Hello Ansan!

A physical assessment day at the Ansan high school across the road from us.

The view from our new place. Our new place will require low mortgage payments–a few hundred thousand won a month. Even if free lancing is slow one month, I can probably still manage it.

One great thing about our location is that Homeplus and Lotte Mart are a five minute drive away. There’s another Homeplus a bit further on, along with a couple of E-Marts, all easily accessible and painless to get to compared to the major operation it used to require in Seoul. And down the street is a restaurant serving what is probably the best Kimchi I’ve even tasted.

We found a quick way into Seoul via Shillim-Dong. It only takes us about 25 to 30 minutes to get to Seoul Natl. Uni. Station. That’s not bad at all.

So far it’s been great. One problem we are facing, however, is that we don’t have another tenant for the Woosung apartment yet! What this means is that we’re stuck paying rent there until someone is found.

The real-estate guy informed us that the economic climate is making people reluctant to rent. Most are seeking chonsae deals, which is paying a lump sum that is returned after 2 years.  We didn’t expect and we’ve never experience such a thing, so that caught us out. Fortunately, some people have been showing interests. It’s a wait and see situation.

Most of our stuff is still back there, making the place look homey for prospective tenants. We kind of living out of suitcase, but comfortably so.  I’m too busy with study and free lancing and other stuff to worry much.

Oh, and, um, I also discovered with great alarm that in this kind of small housing in Korean you are not allowed to put toilet paper down the toilet bowl. There are warning signs about it. It’s something to do with stopping processing costs from being passed onto tenants. I hope it does not cause me psychological damage. It’s just not an issue I want to deal with on a regular basis.

Night time community meeting to share news and try to persuade old community members to stop being complete morons.

At this night meeting on site we heard the latest news in the fight against the deep corruption and stupidity that has been holding up the Sangdo construction project.  After the news there was a Q & A session that became rather heated and emotional.

The battle lines were drawn like this: the young generation–progressive, forward thinking, honest–against a peasant-like old generation–stupid, stuck in the past, easily corrupted.

The heroes in this long and protracted battle are turning out to be AMCO and the Sangdo Committee Board members, as will become apparent later.

The Snake Strikes Again

Because the snake, Mr. Yoon, refused to officially annul his leadership on a Gu office document, with one signature, other means are required to circumvent his intransigence.

a) The Gu office needs 80% of the community to sign up to attend a community meeting. At the meeting there should be a vote to get rid of the snake.  The result is given to the Gu office and everyone needs to register their official stamp by sending a document to the Gu office, i.e. about 1000 people must do this stupid procedure—very difficult to organize.

b) Another way: 20% of people have to sign to have a meeting and vote. That document then must go to the Gu office and then to court for a decision. This will take about a month.

The problem with the second option is this: the interest on a loan and the cost of guards at the front gate of the construction site is already costing about 40 million won a day!!! So let’s clarify. Because the snake will not give one single signature, he is costing the whole community a huge sum of money every day. The gives an idea of what scum he is.

But wait, there’s more! The snake has said he will certainly sign, no problem. Except all of his dirty deeds must be forgiven, no police are to be involved, and no further questions should asked. What a moron. It’s an admission of guilt. His offer was rejected, and rightly so.

Speaking of the snake, it seems that police discovered in his financial dealings record of a sum of money without any indication of where it came from, a big sum of money to the tune of 1.5 billion won. And what is suspected? Well, the snake did a land deal, an illegal one, that resulted in a 5 story building going up right near the front gate. The thing has been completed for some time. Everyone is guessing the 1.5 billion is a payment for his little favor of giving the land away.

The Council Office Crook

The court decision against the snake did little to convince the decision maker at the Gu office. This idiot said his mind was 70% made up that Mr. Yoon had been ousted, but 30% unsure about it. So since it was his decision he will do nothing. He said if the community wants to do anything about it, then they need to vote on it or take it to court. Another moron who is costing the community a lot of money because of incompetence and delays.

The Gu office has in fact insisted on more voting on things that have already been voted on and decided. It’s ludicrous. What this idiot does not know is that a lawsuit is being prepared against him. Hopefully his mind will then be 100% unhappy.

Community Board members will visit the Blue House of the president and hopefully get the message through to the President’s men about what has been going on.

The AMCO Promise

Hyundai AMCO has help to secure a Project Finance (PF) loan with the Shanghai Bank. This is essentially a standard construction loan. The amount was for 2400 billion won. AMCO employees helped secure this loan under the instruction of the AMCO boss so things could get moving.

The Community Board members were also a part of the loan negotiations, and get this: they have all put their homes up as collateral. They could not even borrow $10 from a bank now. What a contrast this is to the snake and his cronies.

The thing about AMCO is that it is a part of the Hyundai motor company, which is very committed to have a huge building arm to its business.  And I mean seriously committed. This construction deal at Sangdo has become central, critical to AMCOs success. If AMCO can make it a success at Sangdo, it’ll soar to maybe 4th place in building company rankings.

This is why AMCO is bending over backwards to help push things through. Not only that, rumor has it that model house will have the best of materials–in contrast to Hanjin’s effort. The construction of Sangdo, in other words, is to be an AMCO showcase. This is fantastic news.

The Village Idiots

So, the meeting got heated once all of the above information had been relayed. People were arguing and shouting out in the dark. I couldn’t understand a word but I knew who were the village idiots—the old community members—and who were all for getting things moving.

At one point a young woman took the microphone to tell her story of how the construction delay had cause a lot grief and hardship for her family. She broke down and was having trouble speaking. The old original community members in the area, let’s call them the village idiots, sat their stony faced, unmoved. Later my wife saw a rich looking village idiot talking to the young woman, but holding up her hand saying she would not sign anything.

So much for the older generation nurturing the young in this country of one blood. What a load of bullshit. All I’ve seen since coming here is Korean screwing over each other.

The village idiots needed to sign with us to get things moving but they kept saying the same old things. They want to negotiate, to pay less than everyone else, when the premium payments are due upon moving in. They won’t budge until they are assured of it. Meanwhile, younger people who are also part of the original residents were telling the old members to focus on getting the construction started.

We are talking here about the ones who have caused all the problems from the beginning. Then they were arguing among themselves like the village idiots they are. Some stormed off, others milled around, no solution was found.

The Big Picture

In the end, I think the idiots will be steamrolled by the process. It is unstoppable now with such committed Board members and with AMCO flexing it muscles ready to start work.

After Chosuk this weekend, the model house will be ready.  Looking forward to that.

Language Education Institute at SNU

It’s been a couple of months since I resigned from the Language Education Institute at SNU after 6 years on the job. I left with an overwhelming feeling of contempt for the place and how it is run.  My patience just ran out, and the most important thing to do then was to quit.

I’ve had to take a pay cut but that’s fine with me. I’m free lancing now and a hell of a lot happier. Admittedly, it was worry before some work came along but I’ve got some now that should last a while. Now I can work from home—an ideal situation that fits in well with my astronomy studies, independent temperament and inability to suffer any more clueless twits.

I won’t go into it to save myself some lawsuits, but I will describe a practice which it also done in Korea’s private companies. It’s truely ludicrous. This place had a system of temporary upper management. The Director’s term is 2 years or less and the Executive Director signs on for 2 years with a maximum 2 year extension. The institute was essentially a business run inside the university. However, it gets worse, only Humanties academics are given the top positions, not business people nor necessarily people with any experience.

The academic careerists are chosen according to the “network” and not by application. So, we had Humanities people who were clueless about business and about what we did, but they were in the position of running the business of the institute and our department! We used to joke that we should write a manual for these blow-ins so we didn’t have upheaval every 2 years or less. We’d have to adjust to the whims of whomever happened to .

So I ask the question, If you needed a manager for your business and you had the choice of employing for the long term businessperson with experience or a Humanities academic on a temporary basis whose main concern is their career, who would you choose? Or, let me put it another way. Which one of the two is the last person you would want running a business of any kind? . . . A reply isn’t necessay. I rest my case.

Community meeting at the Sangdo construction site as it gets dark. The front gate is in the background.

Yesterday evening, under overcast skies, a meeting was held at the Sangdo construction site to discuss the state of things. It had been hastily called the day before. We got there around 5 pm and it went on until it after dark, with people arriving steadily.

I told my wife before heading down there, not knowing who would be present, to put on old clothes in case there was a lot of blood spilled.

Here’s where things stand. I’ve got a lot of ground to cover because of the extent of corruption uncovered.

The Bad News First: the old snake, Mr. Yoon, that dithering bastard who was kicked out as the leader of the redevelopment community—by order of the court–and who has caused us monumental problems from day one, continues to wreak havoc through his incompetence and stupidity even when not around. The reach of his poison, everyone has discovered, extends to the local council office, or the Gu office as it is called here.

1) It has transpired that a document (or documents) at the Gu office was stamped by the snake on behalf of community members. We, the community members, had no idea of it. So, this would constitute a fraud in anyone’s book. However, the Gu office is recognizing the document as legal. How can they do that, even though the court has ruled against the old snake and effectively sacked him? Well, everything has been stamped and “looks” legal and rumour has it that certain individuals at the Gu office were paid incentives—bribery went on, in other words.

The person responsible for the fake document is Mr. Han, head of Han Management, the company supposed to manage the community’s development—let’s call him the leech. The leech prepared the document but the snake would have stamped his approval on everything. This document concerns bylaws on the community and future construction. An initial document of community laws was seen by members, and everyone signed off on that, but this second document was not seen by anyone. And yet, all the stamps of all community members appear on it—put there by the leech or the snake.

The importance of this document is that it states Hanjin is the builder. So, AMCO can’t move in with that still in the way.

Believe it or not, there is a house beneath the vegetation. It stands near where the meeting was held. Apparently there is a hold-out tenant still in there.

2) The snake, Mr. Yoon, had said at a previous meeting that he would quit his position and sign a Gu office document stating his resignation. This would allow the newly elected leader, a young guy, to take over with full authority. It would also mean that AMCO could proceed. However, the snake has gone back on his word and said he will not sign anything to say he has quit. (He wasn’t at this meeting. I’ll get to why a little later.)

3) The leech, Mr. Han, reportedly bought land somewhere for 95 billion won.  Mr. Yoon has reputedly embezzled 20 billion won. The leech also took it upon himself to “create” 40 new apartments out of thin air. And he sold them! The money he would have made is anywhere between 15 billion and 30 billion won. But guess who would have stamped the documents to allow this to happen? Yes, the snake. Apparently, since the fabricated apartments have been sold, the deal cannot be undone and the purchases will have to be honored. But where is the money? No one knows yet.

4) The leech has been doing some creative accounting as well. While overspending, and as money was disappearing, he was fiddling the books to make it all look good. He also refused requests by community leaders to see his record. That’s understandable because there are very few records of transactions to see! The leech hasn’t really bothered to keep any. All the millions were managed—now get this—in an Excel file! Yes, hard to believe. Also, some deals were done in the form of land swaps.

5) It appears that different people might have been given different contracts. In addition, some were only given the size of the apartment on the contract but not the cost or what they paid. They were misled on prices. These mainly concern the old community members led by Mr. Yoon. So, it seems that the snake was ripping off his own gullible followers.

6) The leech lied to old community members about the new management company that is taking over from him, called CT Global. Daemyung, the other gangster builder, actually went to the home of AMCO’s CEO and told him that CT Global was ruining everything.

7) Hanjin is asking for money that is well beyond anything it did on the construction site.

8) The longer things are delayed the more it is costing the community because of bank loans that are already in place.

It is clear that we should have lynched these morons long ago. The list of scumbags is as follows: Mr. Yoon, Mr. Han, Hanjin, Daemyung and a handful of older community members—all out for themselves and all totally corrupt.

Empty chairs at the back before the meeting started and part of the construction site in the background, now much of it overgrown

The Good News Section: the snake and the leech are in the hands of the police! That’s right, the police are now investigating all of their corrupt dealings.

1) CT Global, who has taken over from Han Management, has seen it all before, having cleaned up 6 previous mismanagement cases concerning reconstruction developments. They are investigating the money trails and will clean up our mess. They will be asking everyone to submit their documents and finally we will see transparency and record keeping. A guy from CT explained everything at the meeting, detailing how the snake and the leech were thieves and their documents where fakes.

2) The new community leaders are going to take Hanjin and Daemyung to court for compensation for all the delays and financial suffering they have caused.

3) It seems that Lee Myung-Bak, the president, has lifted height restrictions on apartment building heights. Our development was capped at 16 or 18 floors, from memory. Now AMCO will be able to go higher. That’s fortunate given that we now have an extra 40 apartments no one accounted for!

4) Because of the Gu office problem, guards have been stationed at the gate to deny access to any Hanjin gangsters. I think this is going to be a volunteer effort. Members will volunteer as their number comes up. That means we may have to go down and perhaps do an overnighter ourselves in the near future.

5) The community will be sending a petition to Lee Myung-Bak. This may have some sway because Lee used to head Hyundai and AMCO is of course Hyundai. In fact, to make this clearer to the public, AMCO has changed its name to Hyundai AMCO.

6) Old community members have been referring to us, the newer members, as whores. We don’t know why. However, now they are beginning to realize what a thief and betrayer the snake is and what a fraud and lier the leech is. The older community members are very dumb people and will find it hard to admit what old fools they have been.

The front gate, now with all the signage taken down. No more "High Class Life" up there--no, nothing high class about the antics that have gone on

See how deep the corruption, stupidity and greed goes? So, here we are, Korea in the twenty-first century, still weighed down by corruption and people with the mentality of village peasants.

I came to this country with an open mind, but given these events and my past experiences with management at SNU, I am beginning to think that incompetent and clueless management may be a cultural tradition in Korea. One almost expects it. And by the way, Mr. Yoon, the snake, is an SNU graduate.

No one seems to be doing much to stop dirty deeds like these from happening in the first place. Something similar happened with my brother-in-law’s housing, which is to be constructed next to ours. As well as crooked dealings with the Gu office, their community leader running away with a whole lot of money. The police are still looking for him. Thankfully that’s not our problem.

Nonetheless, slowly the forces of good are overcoming the forces of evil. Thus we edge closer to our apartment’s construction, millimetre by millimetre.

Now for a sad and poigniant tale told by the new community leader. He said a 75 year old man came up to him at the last meeting, took his hands, and said that at his age he probably would not live to see his apartment built. I know how he feels.

Some great news today that is keeping me chuckling. AMCO has begun construction! The gates down at the construction site where our apartment will be built are finally open again, signs are up and trucks will be rolling.

This comes after the court ruled in our favor of AMCO, and by extension us, on all counts and booted out the gangster Hanjin. It has also ruled that the trouble-makers, the old residents there, who refused to pay more money and created so many of the problems for us, will have to pay up and do as they are told.

I really laughed when I heard that last part. They have cost me so much money in rent because of their stupidity. Finally, we have some justice.

I also hear that AMCO is a rising star. It has or is building a steel works twice the size of Yeouido—Seoul’s business district—so it’s truly massive. That is raising their profile and will send our apartment values up. At last the wait is over.

But there’s no getting back the years of rent we’ve had to pay because of the delay.

—- Update! —-

Often in my life I speak too soon. You know, I’ll never get married, I’ll never be poor again, I’ll never become a cynical person—things like that.  And yet again, I spoke too soon. It seems that the signs and activity at the site were not AMCO’s doing. It was Hanjin!

Why is Hanjin suddenly motivated to look like it is a real building company and actually turn up at our construction site? Well, of course, it’s just a front for their gangster operation. The reason they are attempting to look busy is to get more money out of AMCO. AMCO has to pay for work already done, so Hanjin is putting on a pathetic and fake show to impress the idea that it has done and still is doing lots of work.

It’s yet another tactic that shows what a scumbag company Hanjin is. They’re not fooling anyone with such an amateurish production.

Here is everyone--well, not quite everyone--voting unanimously on 10 issues that need to be resolved before AMCO construction can start.

One small flower and big stupidity created all of the problems and delays we’ve had for the past 3 years.

Imagine the scene in 2003. A community vote is being held to nominate the builder of the Songdo redevelopment. All the people there are residents, whose homes will be demolished and who will gain an new apartment for a small payment of 250,000,000 won ($250,000). Not only that, they will be given money, possibly 100,000,000 won ($100,000), to live on, while they wait for the construction to be completed. Pretty good deal, I’d say.

There they are with a new strut in their step—community leaders are swaggering about, everyone’s puffed up and happy because they’ve hit the jackpot. They are nobodies in a poor neighborhood, not too smart, and mostly elderly, but here they have the power to vote who will build their new expensive homes.

And the choice? Hanjin or LG. It’s a no-brainer. LG is the biggest and the best. It’s a forgone conclusion that LG should be voted because the apartments will be top quality and their resale value will be very high. All residents were going to choose LG. But wait! At the door of the voting place are Hanjin representatives with a rose for each person. It worked.

The elderly community, largely poor, largely uneducated and unintelligent were swayed by Hanjin’s flower. They changed their minds and voted Hanjin. Fucking morons. Had they voted LG that day, we would be now living in a rather expensive apartment and looking quite well off.

The old residents voice their opinions. This is when things had calmed down a little and people had dispersed but trouble still flared up now and then.

Since that day of the Hanjin vote, all the problems started. The community leader handed over his official stamp to the community manager, who then proceeded to stamp everything. Another builder, Daemyung, got involved. No records were kept of where money went. Illegal activities were done. Now an accounting firm has to be hired to track down what happened and where money went.

After years of problems because of these clueless pea-brained residents, we are at some final voting on Saturday, July 4, and they all walk out! This is not before they demanded a special contract different to everyone else, where they didn’t have to pay a cent more. That would mean everyone else would have to pay for them.

Morons on the move. These are the last people at the meeting that should have any reason to show indignation.

During the explanation of voting, the old fogies were standing up demanding to be heard. They were running up the front and shouting. The audience was shouting them down. It was clear there were two factions there. The elderly idiot residents and the younger later purchasers like us. Finally, a wall of people was put across the stage to prevent violence. Then a debate ensued, the culmination of which the old residents walked out.

Residents stop to voice objections and shout abuse.

While it was all happening, the conniving old fool, the community leader was sitting like a snake behind a rock, watching intently. Finally he got up and said he would go with the other residence and they all walked out the door.

Another debate followed to decide whether the vote should go ahead. Everyone wanted to do it, even without the old fogies.

All of this took 5 hours to resolve. I was sitting their shaking my head at the stupidity and greed of the old resident’s demands. They should giving us money for all the trouble they have caused. My wife was full of hatred for the old community leader. He has been at the center of all the feeble minded stupidity that has cost us time, money and frustration.

Satellite shot of the current state of the building site. Everything is basically cleared and ready to go. Soongshil Uni. Station can be seen right of centre.

Hanjin, the builder that behaves like a Korean gangster organization, accepted that if members of the development community voted them out, they would leave. Everyone did vote Hanjin out, opting for Amco instead, unanimously. However, Hanjin does not want to go now, not without blackmailing us for as much money as possible.

The case has gone to court and decisions will be handed down in August. In the meantime, Hanjin has sent out documents asking community members to select them as the builder. These documents contained the threat that if Hanjin was not made the builder, nothing would be built. This is bizarre since everyone has already voted them out. It is also very indicative of the thuggery that characterizes Hanjin’s mode of operation.

Here is what this gangster builder is demanding.

1. Cost of construction to date: 55 billion won (around $55 million US)
2. Compensation for damages: 23.5 billion won (around $23.5 million US)
3. Compensation for breach of contract: 23 billion won ($23 million US)

So, in total, the Hanjin thieves are demanding $101.5 million US to move out and let construction begin.

The cost of construction they are demanding is a ridiculous figure, given that 1) they have not actually done anything except clear land and that 2) they have only completed about 1% of the total project. Their other claims are ludicrous since Hanjin is the one that has caused damage and failed in its obligations.

Apart from dealing with these thieves, other issues have to be resolved. One is to get rid of that 70+ year-old bastard, the community leader, who has caused so much grief and trouble to everyone. Personally, I think they should string him up, but unfortunately this against the law nowadays. He’ll just be voted out, leaving the damage behind.

Next issue, which will be pursued in another court, is getting compensation from Hanjin for wasting everyone’s time and for criminal behavior. The fact remains that if it had not been for Hanjin and the other morons involved in all of this, we would be living in a our new apartment about now.

Finally, there is the issue of how much we are actually going to pay for the apartment. The price is no longer fixed and it will depend of market fluctuations.

Many of these issues will be discussed at a meeting July 4, 09. Meanwhile, we’ve been sent a book showing Amco’s apartement redesigns, which look better than the ones Hanjin came up with. Here are the 3 different 84 square meter designs that are relevant to us.

Plan A

Plan B

Plan C

Here is the vote taking place for the AMCO Constructions Company to take over the construction of the Sangdo Haemoro apartment complex from Hanjin and Daemyung. This is where our community got to tell those gangsters to go to hell.

Hanjin representatives had tried to call my wife several times during the week, no doubt to try and sway her away from a negative vote. They would have done the same to everyone else. My wife ignored their calls and perhaps others did, too. The vote against Hanjin was unanimous.

I’m pleased with the choice of AMCO, it’s brand name being AMCO Town. It is among the top 20 of construction companies in Korea and last year it won a kind of best apartment award. The company is up and coming and looking to make a mark. It was only established in 2002; however, it is part of Hyundai Motor Company. So that’s cool! It’s previous CEO is now the president of Korea, Lee Myung-bak. Hyundai built our car too, the KIA Carens, which we are very happy with.

For these reasons I’m glad they’re going to take over. My wife and I actually think now that things are going to turn out much better than they would have, even though we’ve been put through a long delay.

AMCO’s Vice Chairman and CEO was at the meeting, reassuring everyone and laying out the strategy for going forward. If all goes well, construction will start again in 2 months. We heard the talk and saw a promotion video, as shown below. Various people were introduced. All in all, I got the impression AMCO is really out to please. What a contrast to Hanjin, the smug bully.

AMCO will change the apartments around. A company rep explained that the materials Hanjin was intending to use were of poor quality and the design was inadequate–the kitchen, for example, was poorly placed as far as it was concerned. This means we might as well forget everything we saw in Hanjin’s model house!

Nonetheless, I was please to hear all of this. It also gave me the impression that AMCO are going to do things right. Sangdo AMCO Town, as it will be called, is possibly be their biggest housing construction project to date, not just in Seoul but in Korea. It could well be a showcase opportunity for them.

There is one major problem. At the moment, on the gates down at the construction site, Hanjin has posted notices saying if anything is touched, the issue will go to court. That’s the worry. Hanjin are legally still there, although everyone wants them out. What happens next will decide how much more of a delay we can expect.

Will Hanjin go quietly, or will it live up to the reputation it has impressed on me, as a gangster company? They could make things difficult pulling out, in which case, as we were told today, we may see a 6 month delay. I’m secretly hoping that since Korea’s President has ties with Hyundai as its former CEO, Hanjin may back off and just piss off.

So, things are on the up and up, and I left that meeting today feeling pretty confident and enthusiastic about AMCO.

Well, here are they are, facing each other off over the front line, which was established between them as the threshold between the living room and the balcony.

We tried introducing Ricco, a younger and weaker male to Monty, the older and much more muscly male, whose territory was being imposed upon. Advise we’d read suggested putting them together in neutral territory, like a bathtub, which we did once. The results were much the same as you see in the shots below—taken over a series of days, first some dung dropping, some tentative jousts and probing maneuvers, then all out war!

It was generally an opportunistic charge, bite and flee tactic by Monty. The object of the battle appears to be to extract as many clumps of hair as possible from your opponent. You can see some, bottom left, in the shot above. But the end of the battle, there was hair from one end of the room to the other. I could tell who got in the most bites by the colours of the hair clumps.

Often Monty ran off with hair hanging out of his mouth. He’d then go and flop down on his side of the front line, sometimes doing a victory roll before lying there panting with exhaustion—hair still hanging out of his mouth.

See the spots on the window? A lot of that is urine! Rabbits, when marking territory, sometimes seem to have a spasm moment, when they flick their behinds in running off, either defecating or spraying urine in the process.

When the two weren’t fighting that’s what they were doing, spreading as much dung around as they could to mark out their territory. This and hair everywhere was collateral damage. There would have been more in the photos but I was cleaning it up intermittently.

But Ricco, though weaker, didn’t back down at anytime. You can see the female, Panda, in the background showing not least bit of interest, while boys will be boys in the foreground.

Most of these shots required a fast shutter speed. To the naked eye it’s almost impossible to see what’s going on, as it all happens so fast.

They both appear to be off the ground in this shot. You can see all the dung, or collateral damage, around that I didn’t sweep up. Oh, well, so much for the bonding sessions!

Getting Monty and Ricco to play nice wasn’t working, but we had to do something about Ricco taking up the living room. If he couldn’t live with the other rabbits, we’d have to rig up a proper home for him. After much consideration, we decided on another strategy, inspired by the vet who’d done Ricco’s neutering. He recommended keeping the males fenced off but side by side, where they could see each other constantly and hopefully get used to each other.

With that, we have created two areas on the balcony, divided by the meat-grill wire mesh fencing. It was a great relief after doing that to get space back in our apartment. We then went off to clean the apartment, but a little later noticed that Monty had broken through the barrier! He was on Ricco’s side and there were tufts of hair and alfalfa spread everywhere. This indicated a mighty battle had taken place. By the time we arrived, both parties were exhausted, and Monty was basically trying to get the hell out.

I secured the barrier and made a better makeshift mesh “door.” But that doesn’t stop Monty attacking the fencing now and then. The first night on the balcony constant noise came from Monty’s restless running around and hitting at the mesh. Our bedroom is right near the balcony and, as I was woken regularly, I presume he remained vigilant and active the whole night.

The rabbit war has been the major pain in adopting Ricco, not to mention double the cleaning (half an hour’s worth every morning for me), but with any luck peace will prevail eventually. And if they can all live in harmony, that might even halve the cleaning!

Ricco settling in on his side of the balcony.

Oh, not another one! Yes, we’ve got another orphan rabbit to add to our collection. It’s Ricco!

How did we end up with him? Well, a member of KARA (the animal rights group I made a website for) belongs to a church that has a kindergarten out the back with a kind of romper room and playground. In the romper room, which seemed to me more like a greenhouse, they had Ricco in a tiny cage. I was told no one looked after him, except the KARA member. When I heard about this, I went around to have a look and immediately suggested building an enclosure with more space. The KARA member had joined two cages together but this was still inadequate.

I felt really sorry for the little guy, and not a little angered at the behavior of the Christians in charge. Instead of being responsible, it seemed like he was regarded as some kind of kindergarten toy. And a companion rabbit that had been in the room with him had died from heat stroke last summer. As I said, the room was almost like a kind of greenhouse. This gives an idea of the level of irresponsibility practiced by the teachers.

As soon as I saw him, I could see his intelligence and brightness. He was clearly smart, with an intense curiosity and a zest in his movements. Quite unlike Monty, when we first met him. I thought it was criminal for Ricco to be locked up as he was.

I decided we would adopt him. The KARA member said no one would care. So, one Saturday afternoon, my wife and I went around to the kindergarten and basically kidnapped Ricco! The kindergarten teachers were on holidays, so they’ll find out when they get back.

We already knew introducing a new rabbit to the rabbit world of our apartment would be fraught with problems. So I constructed a pen from barbecue grill mesh pieces, bought from the local supermarket, and plastic twine.

Ricco was going to be named Coco, but then we found out he was a boy, and so it’s Ricco. Finding out he was a boy was also when all the problems started. How did we find out? Well, Ricco was let loose one day with Panda and immediately chased her around. Then, when we picked him up to stop him bothering her, we got a full frontal of our first rabbit erection. Between you and me, it’s an alarming sight.

Within days, we got him neutered, otherwise life would be hell for everyone, including him. Besides, it’s the right thing to do with any companion animal.

The temporary enclosure is very effective and gives a rabbit room to roam. Rabbits, by the way, need the space of at least 4 hops in length. The only problem was that Ricco is quite adventurous and is a good jumper. The height of these is just not quite enough. I should have put them long side vertical. But the solution was a covering for when we are not around, which is not hard to do.

In this way the other rabbits can get used to the new visitor. We let them in from the balcony occasionally, as opposed to all of the time. Panda is no problem but Monty has turned into a psycho!

It was fine when they first met, the moment captured below.

Then it kind of deteriorated from there. Nature took over Monty’s brain and he began exhibiting typical male rabbit behavior when territory is threatened. He began harassing Ricco back and forth constantly: running up along the mesh, charging the mesh, dropping dung around the perimeter of the mesh, and sometimes urinating by the mesh. I couldn’t put up with it. He was obsessed, or rather possessed. He’s now out on the balcony almost permanently.

Once Ricco’s hormone’s have settled down a little more, we’ll try introducing him to Monty and get them to bond, if we can. I don’t like our chances, though. Monty is a complete moron at this point. Despite being neutered, he’s begun trying to mount Panda, and he bothers her all of the time–presumably to keep her as a wife. Nature has taken over and is dictating, “Pass on your genes, lad, don’t delay!” I guess his world and its order has fallen apart, but really, they all are going to have to get along.

Apparently, it is possible to have two males together, but it all comes down to their individual personalities. And we are delighted with Ricco’s personality. He’s a real charmer. Nothing like the nervy Monty. Ricco is very much a people rabbit, allowing himself to be picked up and behaving almost like a dog when you get home. His eyes kind of smile at you, too.

I’ll keep things updated on how things turn out.

Part of the crowd at the resident’s meeting.

A community meeting was held last week to discuss the matter of the gangster building company, Hanjin, and its continuing attempts to rob future residents like us involved in the Haemoro apartment complex. The manoeuvrings involve Hanjin’s trademark dirty tactics and coercion techniques.

A decision was made at that meeting to have another meeting today, Saturday, January 17, ‘09, to vote on proposals to fight back. In the picture above the very welcome results are being announced.

In an earlier post, I detailed the latest scheme Hanjin had to ensure hefty profits and lump all risk and liability on the residents. The company is still pursuing this scheme. To recap it goes like this:

1. As the larger apartments are more expensive, the are harder to sell. They’re over a million dollars. So, Hanjin will reduce their price by 20%. However, the cost for doing that is to be borne by residents. That amounts to around $50,000 extra per person.

2. In the event that an apartment is not sold, then residents have to cover 100% of the cost of the apartment. That cost would be on top of the costs for the 20% apartments. As I said, the large apartments will be expensive. Hanjin might even discount the apartments further to sell them, in which residents would have to cover more of the shortfall.

3. Residents are not allowed to upgrade into or purchase the discounted larger apartments themselves.

4. Hanjin wants to manage all of the money matters for the complex.

Now, none of the residents are in favor of any of these. Who would be!? What they all want is to get rid of Hanjin altogether, and of course Daemyung will go as well. (The issue of Hanjin building half of the complex and Daemyung building the other is now irrelevant.)

All work as stopped at the site.

The community managers are currently liaising with reliable building companies to see who is interested in taking over. Everyone would love Ramion (pronounced “Lamion”; a part of Samsung) to take over. That’d boost the value. But even Daelim would be good, and as Ramion is unlikely we’re rooting for Daelim.

What Hanjin did this week, however, was set up a call center to contact residents and persuade them to its side. It is using scare tactics to convince people not to reject its scams, saying they will lose out with another building. It has even prepared a video about how they will lose by not sticking with Hanjin. My wife got a call from them this week and she gave them the Korean version of “thanks but no thanks.”

Word has it that Hanjin is also calling companies that may be solicited and warning them they will lose money if they take over the project.

So, today we got to the meeting late. That didn’t matter, though. We got there in time for the announcement of the vote kick Hanjin out! Hanjin had put on it’s video and presumably no one was impressed. We were sorry we had missed. It would have been a good laugh.

As we were late, my wife couldn’t vote but she had already allowed the committee to vote on her behalf. And the result, well, around 96% of residents wanted to take out Hanjin. Everyone cheered when that was announced.

The Haemoro gates with a big clock, top left, that says time has run out for Korean gangsters, Hanjin.

The question now, however, is, What will Hanjin do about it, apply more gangster tactics? If they ask for money from the incoming builder, no doubt they’ll jack up the price and try to make a profit. If they decided to go to court, it will be a protracted affair, and I guess the site will remain dormant.

We heard from future residents at the end of the meeting who got up to voice opinions and ask questions. One guy pointed out that if the committee had voted for LG right at the beginning instead of Hanjin, everything would have been built by now. Apparently, when the committee voted on that some years ago, Hanjin won by just 1 vote.

Another guy got up and announced that he’d bought his apartment in 2002. He’s been waiting for 7 years! It makes our little kind of insignificant. His anger about it all must be four times ours.

Well, let’s see what Hanjin does next…

Sharks on all sides in a feeding frenzy. Hardly high class at the moment.

Everything seemed to be going along fine. Trucks were constantly going in and out of the main entrance of the Haemoro construction site in Sangdo. Then last weekend, when going past on the bus, I noticed the main gates closed. That’s unusual, I thought. The explanation came when my wife went to a buyers and future residents meeting, called last night and attended by about 150 people.

Construction has halted indefinitely. Why? It comes down to a tangled mess of intrigue, incompetence, greed, and bullying. The problems are so numerous and complicated, I’m going to have a hard time explaining it all. But here goes.

Issue 1: Several groups/individuals are still living in the construction area. Some won’t move unless they are paid around $300,000 each. These little enclaves of greed include a kindergarten and a church. The irony of it is that they those two in particular aren’t moving out of the area or closing down. They will just relocate nearby and enjoy the profits from servicing high density apartment dwellers, once the apartments are built. But it seems like the profits can’t come soon enough. Money is also being asked for old squatter shacks on top of the back hill, which aren’t even a part of the construction site.

Issue 2: There is one hold-out in a house right at the main entrance. This person is separate from the other group and is also demanding money. Negotiations are in progress. The woman involved is apparently only the tenant, not the owner. I find it incredible that a mere tenant can hold everyone to ransom. Her house presently sits alone on a mound, almost totally overgrown with creepers, right where the main entrance road is supposed to be—a key position.

Issue 3: A water supply station is sitting on the hill above the construction site. We all know that. Everyone can see it. It’s a big round dome. However, the architects or whoever oversaw the planning of the site neglected to investigate what was under the ground. You’d think this would be a first priority. But perhaps in their own rapid rush to make money, it was too inconvenient to bother with. Now it emerges that huge pipes from the water supply station lie under the Haemoro construction site. These cannot be tampered with because they supply water to the whole Sangdo area. So, the solution? They need to take 3 months to install new pipes around the construction site and under a road. Consequently, tenders were, well, kind of put out for the job. Surprise, surprise, what are the choices? Hanjin, Shinwon and Daemyung. Daemyung is quoting around $600,000 higher than an average company would quote for the job. What a bunch of crooks.

Issue 4: Hanjin’s thuggery, part I. The larger size apartments have not sold well. And how could they, when the model house was shut down so quickly, giving the public little chance to learn about Haemoro. So, Hanjin has announced that it will reduce the price for these larger apartments. Now, in ordinary circumstances, this might mean that people in smaller apartments could perhaps upgrade with a higher mortgage, and then others in the smallest apartments could in turn upgrade to the mid-range ones. In this way everything could fill up. One flaw in this is that the downturn in the economy has made smaller apartments more popular. However, a worse flaw is that Hanjin has said it will not accept this upgrade option. It says everyone has to pay for the larger apartments collectively, at reduced prices. So, they will build the apartments, which will be empty, but we will have to pay for it. This is not the only evil Hanjin is perpetrating.

Issue 5: Hanjin’s thuggery, part II. Hanjin is insisting that it will only build it’s half of the construction site and be responsible for nothing else. The other half is Daemyung’s responsibility. However, no residents will want to live in the Daemyung side of the complex. Their apartment’s will probably be worth less on the market, regardless of whether they look the same as Hanjin’s. If it goes ahead under this arrangement, the lottery for apartment numbers will end up deciding who will have to live there.  Daemyung, rubbing its grubby little hands, will probably be more than happy with this arrangement.

Issue 6: Hanjin’s thuggery, part III. Hanjin is insisting that it wants control of the community management office. That of course will give it more power to do whatever it wants. The company has said it will send out its teams of consultants (henchmen) to persuade residents to go along with its plans. It has done it before, it says, and it will do it again. It sends these people out and it divides the community, undermining any solidarity or cohesion. It sounds more like the Mafia than a building company, doesn’t it?

Issue 7: The community management office consists of a bunch of buffoons who are probably in league with Daemyung. The head there is a smooth talking salesman, a smoke and mirrors man. He and his underlings have mismanaged everything from the beginning. Nothing is transparent. For example, they have no records of what they paid people in the area to leave. Cheap paper slips were used, not official documents. Who knows where money has been going? They also refuse to release community member contact details to anyone, so that news is not spread among buyers about what is going on. The only news source is the community website, but not everyone looks at this, especially not older buyers. Because they know no better, many buyers believe the lies spread by this salesman and his cronies.

Issue 8: Led by the nose by this salesman and the community management office is a stupid old bastard who is the spokesman or leader of the current area dwellers. The area people do whatever he says and he does what the community management office says. This has caused no end of wrong decisions and screw ups. Silly old fool.

The buyers community has put up with a lot over the years and it’s coming to a head now. The feeling is that things may have to go to court. That could take years. The community would like to get rid of Hanjin and Daemyung. This will be hard to do, but it is one path to take. What other options are there?

That’s what a big meeting to held soon will be about. The community has a lawyer who is caught up in the mess like the rest of us, and he will be recruited to help the fight. In addition, we may begin organizing protest rallies. This will be difficult in large numbers of at least more than 150 people because the contact details of all community members are known only to the community management office.

My opinion is to first get rid of the community management office and that old bastard patriarch of the area. Once control is wrestled from them, everyone can check the books, if any, and see what has really been going on. All community members can also be contacted and supplied the truth about everything.

Personally, I think the best thing would be to get rid of all the gangsters and crooks and start afresh, or at least attempt it.

Amazingly, we are actually better off than my wife’s sister’s family. Their building company, Shinwon, which is supposed to be building several apartment blocks alongside complex, is bankrupt! That means my sister-in-law and her family could be facing a sellout of the land. After all this time, after all the waiting, they may just end up getting money back and have no apartment.

And my wife? She’s angry but not worrying too much. She says it’ll be so good once it’s built that it’s worth persevering through the setbacks. Easier said than done for me.

Mission: Get officially registered as married and obtain a spousal F-2 visa in one day.

Forecast: Not a hope in hell.

Totally Useless Information from the Seoul Immigration website.

This is a basic rundown of how to go about getting officially married in Korea. Perhaps it will help someone.

Part I

I’ve had little to do with the Australian embassy since being in Korea. I emailed for information once. Its website is pretty basic. Here it is:

http://www.southkorea.embassy.gov.au/seol/consular.html

Yes, it really is spelt “seol” in the address above. Here was my first stop as an Aussie.

The site has a link to “Marriage overseas” information, but that just links to the Australian Foreign Affairs site. From here you can download the No Impediment to Marriage Form PDF file. Fill it out. It has two sections, one for the male and one for the female (I don’t think a same sex arrangement has official endorsement).

You then take this document to the embassy with both passports, yours and your intended’s. Also, make sure you take 100,000 WON. It is the required fee. That is so you can again experience getting ripped-off Australian style, while far from home.

When you go to the consular section, you’ll be greeted by a small room with what looks like a bullet proof cashier’s window. After handing over the forms and waiting for 20 minutes or so, you will get your No Impediment to Marriage document.

Along with that, you’ll get three Report and Certificate of Marriage forms. You have to fill out all of them and take them to a Gu office. Take your wife there too, as she’ll have to sign things and interpret for you.

My No Impediment to Marriage document was in English, and I was told that this would need to be translated for the Gu office. Well, my wife had to do that, but for the 100,000 WON I paid, I would have expected a translation included, and perhaps a small gift.

You read correctly: my wife had to write up a draft of an official document herself. That kind of makes a mockery of officialdom, document legalities, and due process, it would seem to me.

Part I Summary:

Things to take to the embassy:

1. 1 x No Impediment to Marriage document.
2. Both passports
3. 100,000 WON for the processing fee and for being ripped-off.

Receive back:

1. 1 x No Impediment to Marriage document
2. 3 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms

Part II

The next step is to go to the Gu office. In my case, because my wife could not get time off work and documents had to be filled out and translated, we could not do everything on the same day. We could have with use of a computer and printer (maybe at a PC room). And a Gu office is near the embassy in Jongno, so that wouldn’t have been a problem.

However, it had to be the next day for us, at Dajang Gu, and during my wife’s lunch break. I was horribly late to meet my wife at the Gu office because I got a bus going in the wrong direction. I was hot, bothered and sweating by the time I got there. The previous night, my wife had translated the No Impediment to Marriage document and we had filled out the three Report and Certificate of Marriage forms.

The Gu office also required their version of the Report and Certificate of Marriage form to be filled out and signed. So, they kept both language versions of the No Impediment to Marriage document and both language versions of the Report and Certificate of Marriage form.

They gave us back the two remaining Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, one of which did not get a Gu office logo imprint, nor an extra green stamp on the back. I don’t know why. I had actually operated the logo imprint machine for the Gu office girl because she didn’t have the strength. I thought I was imprinting all documents, but it seems only two had been place under the imprint plate, theirs and only one of my copies. This proved to be a problem later

Part II Summary:

Things to take to the Gu office:

1. No Impediment to Marriage forms, in two languages.
2. 3 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, all filled out.
3. 3,300 WON for the processing fee.

Receive back:

1. 2 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, stamped (and maybe imprinted with a logo)

Part III

Next, I made a dash back across town to the Australian embassy, where I presented the 2 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms. However, there was a problem. As mentioned, only one of my forms had been imprinted and had a green stamp on the back. But the consular office was used to having all forms appropriately stamped and imprinted.

I couldn’t believe it, as I had been the one to operate the logo imprint machine for the Gu office girl. When embassy girl told me of the problem, I actually requested the document so I could hold it up to the light to check it for myself.

My mind was sinking into dread at this point, as a man who loathes bureaucratic madness.

That wasn’t the only problem. We had not signed the forms with witnesses present. My wife said she’d do that at her workplace. But when she rang the Gu office beforehand, they had said they didn’t care about that, so it wasn’t done. The Gu office just wanted their Korean version signed while at the office.

The Australian consular attendant suggested that they could process the forms anyway, as long as I went back to the Gu office “one day” to get everything fully imprinted and stamped, etc. I was relieved and with renewed confidence even suggested she ring them. I wanted her to get their official approval and to know it was all above board. This was a mistake, as she heeded my advice—and it nearly worked against me.

After calling them, she seemed to forget her first suggestion, and began pushing the documents back at me so I could return to the Gu office. I was having none of that. I reminded her of her first idea, of simply processing them, and she went away to see if it would be all right. There are many shades of yes and no in Korea.

After some delay, she returned with the documents signed. This incident was a good lesson: when things are going your way, do not try to make a point or be officious–just keep your goddamn trap shut.

Part III Summary:

Take to the embassy:

1. 2 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, stamped by the Gu office.

Receive back:

1. 2 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, further signed and rubber stamped.

If you have reached this point, congratulations, you are now officially married. How romantic. The girl at the embassy congratulated me. She seem happier than I was at that point, with the whole thing being something of a burden.

Part IV

Once done at the embassy, I headed across town again to the Seoul Immigration Office. I had little hope of success.

I’ll explain by saying that the Seoul Immigration website is pretty useless—well, no, it’s more than that, it’s a piece of crap. It has things like flow charts when you click on “How to apply” links, like the one above, which basically tell you nothing.

In fact, if you change a few words, you could probably use any of the charts for any government process anywhere because they are so broad. Just pathetic.

I couldn’t even find a map on that site I could print off and give to a taxi driver. But what is worse I couldn’t find solid information about what I would need for an F-2 visa. I took everything I could and decided to wing it and at least find out what I needed.

The woman I encountered was an old style public servant. When she saw I did not have all the necessary documents, she did not roll her eyes at my ignorance but did everything else to convey the same message. I began to get tense. She notice that and modified her attitude. I then pointed to the printout I’d made of the Immigration website, with its useless information. In one part, it said this document was required:

Reference of a spouse with Korean nationality

I then spread my arms before her, palms upward, in supplication and bewilderment. I ask her, What does it mean? What is it? How is anyone supposed to know? Would anyone have a clue what to do to get it? She was unmoved.

She produced a document that was all in Korean, a document you obtain from the Immigration Office, by the way, not from the website. So naturally I would not have that document, nor have it filled out, prior to my first visit. I needed other documents, too, and so the woman wrote down what I needed, all in Korean. Instead of her explaining it to me, she said my wife could explain it. Once again, my wife was put in service as an aid to the government.

One thing I needed I could get from the Gu office across the road, she said. This was a useless exercise. I couldn’t get any “proof” I was married yet, as it would take 3 days to process the marriage documents across town at the other Gu office. I found that out after I had caused myself and the service people across the road a lot of embarrassment with communication problems and the silly request.

I had to return the next week, that is, after my wife obtained several other Gu office documents for me. But guess what, one of them wasn’t what they wanted, as my wife had misunderstood the scrawled note handed to me the week before. So, I had to return to the Gu office over the road again and get it from there. This time I was successful.

Once that was done, all documents were taken off me and I was told I’d have my passport and ID card in a week, delivered by post.

Part IV Summary:

Take to the Immigration Office:
1. Alien registration card
2. Passport (take your wife’s too just in case)
3. Embassy Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, signed and rubber stamped.
4. Gu Office document proving that the marriage is official.
5. Gu office document proving address of you and your wife (or just your wife?)
6. Gu office document proving your wife’s family status (or lineage or something like that)
7. Documents proving your financial viability, such as a proof of work document or a rental agreement or a bank statement
8. Reference of a spouse with Korean nationality (as mentioned above)
9. 60,000 WON (I was first told it was 50,000, but the next day it mysteriously went up) worth of Immigration Office stamps
10. 30,000 WON worth of Immigration Office stamps for a multi-entry visa.

Receive back:

1. Snide expressions mixed with impatience
2. A receipt if you nominate to have your passport posted to you, which you will have to pay for.

In conclusion, get your wife to ring the Immigration office to find out what documents you need. Make absolutely sure you have absolutely the right details of what you need to obtain. My final tip would be to avoid government bureaucracy as much as possible while in Korea.

Sangdo Haemoro: see more on the official Haemoro website here or for Sangdo here. (Last I looked all links to info on the Sangdo home page had been taken away, which makes me suspicious.)

It was time to put up or shut up this week. Our first payment and the signing of the Sangdo Haemoro contract was due within a three day window, or rather three and a half days. It was extended to include Saturday morning due to complaints from people who couldn’t get in during business hours. We were in this group, too.

Sunah had spent her lunchtime Friday at the bank and Gu office, obtaining necessary documents. Prior to that, I’d transferred twenty grand or thereabouts into her account–the first payment. She then transferred that to the appropriate Sangdo Haemoro account and obtained a certificate of proof.

The image above shows the building numbers and color coded buildings indicating apartment types. Our size is the 109 square metres type, of which there are three: the pink, the light blue and the red. Down below I’ve included the design types.

But before getting to them, here’s how the contract and mortgage signing and stamping went. At the showroom it thankfully wasn’t too crowded. We were given our contract folders along with a ticket to wait to see a contract person and mortgage person.

There were five contract types in all, each for a different kind of buyer. Those wanting to purchase on this day, for example, would get a contract with a buy price of around $700,000. Ours wasn’t so much because we bought into it early, and we’ve already paid a couple of 100 thousand.

After a short wait, we saw the contract guy. This part was quick. In the contract there were four or five sections. We only had to sign off on two sections because of unresolved issues. One of the unresolved issues is probably about the option of having balcony extensions or not.

To explain this I’ll show the 109.77 A design. Here’s how the layout looks.

The locations of this kind of apartment are coloured pink in the overhead image below. I quite like these apartments because they are on the corners of the central buildings, facing south-west.

Now, here is the same design in its “default” form, i.e. with balconies. You can see that having balconies can reduce actually living space considerably. Extending floors over balconies is usually an option people go for after construction, but Haemoro’s builders want to make extended floors the standard in all apartments, probably because it’s cheaper that way. They could also save a lot of money building it that way. However, many residences are not in favour. They want the option to decide later.

Personally, I plan to do half and half. We need somewhere decent for our plants and rabbits to live. Balconies are also nice to have for storage.

Anyway, back to the contract signing. The guy explained everything at super speed. Then Sunah used her stamp for signing, which is what Koreans use for official business. (Most people have a special stamp made of their name for such purposes.) Because I couldn’t understand Korean, it was all a blur. It took maybe 10 minutes.

Then we sat and waited to see a banker. Five of them were lined up at paper filled desks at the back of the room. All were constantly busy dealing with buyers. As soon as someone left, we were ushered to a desk.

Without ceremony, we were told that for our contract we could have a mortgage of around 70 million, which covers the first four and a half bulk payments on Haemoro. We then pay the remain few bulk payments ourselves. We could have nominated for the mortgage to take care of payments further ahead but I thought it was better to start now and buy some time to save and live more comfortably now.

Here’s how the guy went about it. Was covering the early lump sum payments how we wanted to do it? Yes. OK, show me your documents. Thank you. Good, now sign this form here, here, here and here. Good. Now, fill this out, here, here and here. Thanks. Sign this form, here, here and here. Great. Give me your stamp and I’ll stamp them. Thank you. Stamp, stamp, stamp and stamp. Thank you. Good bye. Next!

And with that we had a mortgage sorted out in about 15 minutes flat. Sometimes the guy was barely waiting for Sunah to finishing writing before snatching papers away. In fact, he had to give one back because she hadn’t quite completed something. Talk about fast!

I queried Sunah about whether we would have to wait for an approval of some kind. Silly me—of course not. I guess growing up under interminable bureaucratic processes and the anal-retentive inflexibility of Australian ways explains why I asked such a dumb question. The mortgage was ours. Done.

Here is the design for the 109.40 B apartment style:

Most 109 size apartments will be like this, as shown in the location guide below.

Here it is with the balconies still in place.

Finally, here is the 109.72 C style apartment:

Not many apartments will be like this.

Here’s how it’ll look with the balconies in.

After our mortgage was sorted, we went upstairs to look at what options were available. These were wall and floor “under coatings,” a refrigeration system and a ceiling air-con system. We didn’t really need any of them, but we stopped to look at the floor under coating options.

These are a cover that goes on over the cement surfaces of your apartment, before wallpaper and floor coverings are done. They are designed to protect people allergies or skin problems due to the building materials. The first covering system was a coating of charcoal for over a $1000. The second was a coating of mud, which was a bit more expensive at just over $2000. The mud is the kind that you see on jim jil bang (spa) walls.

Sunah liked the mud idea, so we signed up for the mud. With that, it was all finished. Now we just need the apartment built because so far all we own is air.

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.