Friday....

Well this will make post number two for this month. This week has been crazy! How do I start....ok lets start from the begining. On Monday we had to go to immigration to settle my transfer from Seo-cheon to Gunsan. Finally that was finished. Now Yogita and I were staying in another apartment under my old boss. However, both my old boss, and new boss know each other so there was no issue with us living there. Usually your employer provides free housing (even for couples and families) one of the perks of the job.

Well lo and behold....the company managing the apartment went bankrupt. Here is how it works in Korea. Basically owning an apartment can come under 2 different types. One complete ownership (the most expensive), and another sort of like a lease, where a deposit known as "key money" is used. Basically you put down say 30,000 bucks, and you get to stay in the apartment rent free (paying utilities), for a set period of years (3 is common). Now the real estate company takes your deposit and they invest it for the term of the lease. When the lease is up you can start the whole process over again, or move out. If you decide to leave then that deposit money is returned to you.

Now here is the catch, the person managing the funds can...run away with the deposit money. The person signed on to the lease might not even know until the lease period is up, or if they get some to take over the lease from them so they can move into another place.

Legal cases in Korea can take a very long time.

Well this is what happened on tuesday.....the company managing my former bosses apartment when belly up! Fortuntately for my former boss the government has bought the apartment from the bankrupt real estate company. So he had an option pay rent (400-500 bucks a month might be higher!), for a teacher no longer under his employ, with his own apartment to manage. So in order for him to get his deposit back we had to move our hind quarters fast! Well we moved down the hall tuesday night. Ugh it was not easy. The next morning we had to get up early to work out the details of finalizing our move, and assist with the final clean up. Wednesday night I had a dinner party (Hwae-sik in Korean) with my students, then thursday morning we helped move. Whew....gotta catch my breath! SO NOW we are here on friday oh...I forgot to meantion...we had to get up early thursday morning to get our internet services transfered. So today we are also getting up early because we have to get our internet phone set up...so we had to get up early again...actually they are here now...so i better go and post this....

tata