Alex Finch

Good morning, Gangnam!

The first hurdle of the day has been cleared with relative ease and haste. The move was nowhere near as strenuous as I had envisaged and although I fear slightly for the wellbeing of my Mac Mini, I’m glad to be here. I owe Jiny쌤 greatly for arranging the truck and also for the second hurdle of the day - the cleaning ahjummas.

After a long night spent oscillating between adding to an ever enlarging pile of boxes and bags, to playing PES 2012, to keeping myself awake with tea, I feel pretty knackered. I should have started packing earlier and grabbed a few hours while I could, but anxiety and a strange hunger for PES caused me to spent the entire night (Apart from a twenty two minute window that I can’t account for. I think I just blinked for a really long time!) awake.

If I could do it again, and I don’t really want to, but if I could, I would have bought the 85L plastic containers from Home Plus and everything would have taken about twenty minutes. In the end, it took about two hours of solid packing and a lot of procrastinating, unpacking, then packing again to get it all done. I’m fairly sure everything arrived in one piece, so I guess that’s the mark of a successful move. Go, Alex!

Near the scheduled arrival time, I noted about six of these ‘one ton trucks’ coming and going in front of my apartment and finally, one arrived for me. It was a younger man, possibly in charge and an older gentleman and both were very pleasant. Straight to business, but still very pleasant. They were actually a quarter hour early and by the time we were heading down the main road, three of us crammed in the front seat, it had only just gone 8am. I’d much rather early than late. The younger guy asked me a few questions on the way, complimented me on my Korean and asked me why I was moving, while the older gentleman simply nodded and occasionally made an off the cuff remark towards one of the many poor drivers occupying the same stretch of road. Forty minutes after starting, we had arrived at my new apartment.

We were greeted by a stooped security guard telling us that if I was moving in today, I should first speak with the realtor downstairs. I assured him that I had already technically ‘moved in’, and that this was the remainder of my worldly possessions. He seemed confused, but maintained his smile and helped us to the elevators before returning to an open dialogue with another security guard. I hope that his first impression of me is a positive one because I will be seeing him every day and at some point next week, he’ll be taking delivery of my super king size mattress and possibly a TV cabinet. Time will tell on that matter.

Knowing that I had nothing in the fridge and that the cleaning ladies were not due for another three hours, I decided to venture out and seek breakfast. Somewhere that is both familiar and affords a nice view of the street is Tous les Jours. What I didn’t know as I walked upstairs to order, is that they don’t begin serving cooked meals until 10:30. This somewhat dented my plans and instead of finding another cafe, I ordered a coffee and sat down to write. Why is it that try as I might last night, I couldn’t write a single sentence, but here I am, running on six hours of sleep over two days and I’ve written this quite delectable little blog entry on the entire experience to this moment. Marvelous.

(Source: alexfinch.net)

Today was my first solo attempt at starting my portrait portfolio. I set off to the river by my apartment, where the light is good and it’s an open space. I know it’s 설날 today, but I guessed there would still be some people walking around. I was right, but I underestimated the cold. Badly.

I asked four separate people if they would mind posing for a photo and each of them said the same thing - “Sorry, but it’s too cold.” They were all very polite, but after the last rejection, I looked again and realized that everyone was walking with a purpose. Not one person was walking casually along the river like I see on most days. Everyone was trying to get somewhere warmer.

I’ll get them next time.

(Source: alexfinch.net)