미국인이 밥 먹듯이 쓰는 생활영어표현 | 반복해서 들으면 영어가 입에서 자연스레 나와요

Apparently it is becoming a big problem and a big fraud in Korea.

It just seems shady. Hello everybody and welcome to Lunch Hour English. This is going to be a super fun episode because as you can see I've got some delicious looking food here and a beautiful guest. So this is Illy and she also lives here in Korea. So Illy, can you introduce yourself?

Hi guys, my name is Illy. I come from Bulgaria and I've been in Korea for about 6 years now.

Woo! What do you do in Korea?

I do acting and modeling.

She's being very humble. She's an amazing actress and she is in so many advertisements here. I can't walk out of my house without seeing your face somewhere. Oh my god. So what was the recent job that you've done? Like one of the bigger jobs you've done recently?

A recent job that I'm kind of actually pretty happy about how it turned out is commercial for Hyundai car, Hyundai Genesis. I'm not sure if I should say that.

Yeah. Did I sign an NDA?

Was it in the contract? But yeah, it was pretty cool.

So are you hungry today? Are you ready to eat?

I am really hungry. I am very ready to eat right now.

So I feel like so many times when we hang out, we always get jeon and makgeolli. Yeah, that's kind of our thing.

If it only was raining, it would be perfect, right? I know.

It is like the most sunny and hot day today.

Right.

Well, never a bad day for jeon, right?

Of course, yeah.

I'm excited for this one.

Yeah.

Yeah, same! So this is like, um, Dongdongju. I don't know if you can tell on the camera, but it's like a slushie. It's icy, so I think it's perfect for summertime. Let me pour you up. Thank you. I got you, girl. Ooh, looks so good! Do you have anything like this in Bulgaria? Like rice drinks, or was this very different for you?

This is very different, yeah. But I fell in love with makgeolli from the first try. It's so good, it's so refreshing, and I like that it's not too strong.

How do I say cheers in Bulgarian?

Na zdorave!

Na zdorave! You gotta do the tongue roll, right? Na zdorave! Cheers!

Mmm!

It's so good! It's like so refreshing on such a hot day.

Mmm.

Very nice.

I'll take this instead of ice cream any day.

Ooh, they should make a makgeolli ice cream. Is that a thing? I feel like I've seen like makgeolli shakes.

Cut this out. We are gonna have a new business. Makgeolli ice cream.

We're patenting this right now. Nobody steal our idea. Should we try the food before we get into into all the conversation. All right, so we've got a huge assortment of pancakes. Actually, I haven't tried many of these. Yeah, we've got tofu, kimchi, chili pepper.

This is kkaennip, I think.

Oh, kkaennip! Oh, I love kkaennip.

Kkaennip, perilla leaf.

I'll start with this too. Okay, dip it in the soy sauce.

Actually, I grow my own perilla leaves at home.

Oh, you do?

Yeah.

Oh, that's so cool, on your rooftop?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I have my own like little garden there. So nice.

So she actually— you own a building. Like, humble brag. Humble. And you guys renovated this whole building.

Yeah.

And it's gorgeous. Like, her house is beautiful. So I'm just wondering about like, how does housing here in Korea— how does it compare to housing in Bulgaria?

Honestly, I was really surprised. We actually first lived in an apartment, and then because of the noise that we could always hear from the neighbors, we decided, "Oh, we want to live in a house." That's rough. Because you can hear everything from the neighbors.

You can hear them fart next door. Yeah.

So back home, I feel like compared to Korea, most people would love to have their own houses with like a yard and then a garden. And nowadays, a lot of people that live in the city, they're so like tired from all the busy city life.

Yeah.

So they would actually look into buy houses in the outskirts of big cities and they would commute.

To like what you did.

Yeah, basically what I did.

I actually heard a term for this recently. It's called city fatigue. City fatigue. And I can relate to that. Living in the city, the hustle bustle, like, can be exhausting.

So I feel like in Bulgaria it's more doable because we're not that many people. Korea and Bulgaria have the same size of land.

Really?

And we're like just 7 million, and Korea is like, what, 50 million? So imagine if 50 million people wanted to have their own house. Like, this is the math. That is happening.

Yeah, yeah.

When I first came here and then I heard that a lot of people, like, their dream would be to own an apartment.

That's a big difference.

I feel like in Bulgaria, once you buy a house, you would like live there for life. Like, you would consider it more a home, whereas in Korea, people would be looking at it more of as an investment. So they will be moving out more often. I've been living here for 6 years and I moved 3 times. I would never thought that would happen back home.

When I first came to Korea and I heard of like 30-year-olds living with the family, it's very different from American culture where it's like, you know, you're 18 after high school and you're expected to pay your own rent, get your own house, live on your own and be completely independent. So to be completely honest, sometimes in the US when you're older and live at home, some people view it as you're mooching off of your family. Not saying this is true, but some people view it as that. I was really surprised. This is totally normal, totally acceptable. I think it's kind of nice in a way. I wouldn't mind living with my family. But was it shocking for you?

It's quite different from Bulgaria, actually. I feel like in most of Europe, people would get independent on an earlier point in their life, so I feel like I had this type of prejudice. Maybe when I was in my early 20s, I would also think, ah, you're still living with your parents and you're in your 30s, like, why? But now that I'm in my 30s, I would love to live with my parents. That would be so nice.

Isn't it funny how your attitude changes? Because me too, when I'm 20, I was like, I never want to live with my parents again, like, living alone is amazing. Now that I'm older and paying the bills, I'm like, I would love to live with my family again.

Yeah, having someone to cook and wait for you at home.

Is it common for people to live together before marriage?

I really don't know I can't understand like people in Korea getting married and not having the experience of living together before that. So I feel like here like living together is considered as a very big thing, whereas back in Europe it will be more nonchalant. Oh, let's just share rent, like we've been dating for a couple months, so let's just— so people would be doing it out like economical value.

Yeah, yeah, like makes sense for us financially.

Yeah, and here it's more like Oh, we're living together. Okay, now next step is marriage for sure.

It seems a little more controversial here. Something with the religion.

That religion. Buddhism? No, it's Confucianism.

No, I know what you're talking about. Confucian. I think culturally in the US it's very acceptable.

Even I have a lot of friends. A lot of people would be living together, having kids without having marriage, for example. Gotcha. Whereas here in Korea, that's a no-no.

You learn a lot about a person by living. With that.

Exactly, you should know what you're getting into in advance.

Was there any other thing when you first lived here in Korea, something even about the housing, that kind of like shocked you?

Not interacting with your neighbor.

Oh, that's a good point.

In Bulgaria, you would know they're like by name. You would like always talk to each other, having beer at night in the— like if you have a common space, right, you could always go and ask for sugar, for example. Whereas in Korea, you barely meet them. But I heard like there was an old tradition back in the day, you would give rice cakes whenever you move into a new place. So the second time we moved in an apartment, I remember we gave some rice cakes to the neighbors. Oh, that's such a nice thing to do.

That's so sweet. I don't think I've ever seen my neighbors in Korea.

Maybe it's an apartment building thing. If you have kids, it's a different story. But if you live on your own or if it's a couple, maybe it's harder.

When I was growing up, it was very common. I was very close with my neighbors. I lived on a dead-end street and we knew almost everyone on the streets. My dad would mow the neighbor's lawns and we'd help each other out.

Have barbecue together.

Yeah, sometimes. I feel like there's pros and cons because Some days I'm like, oh, it would be like helpful. You can help each other out and it's kind of nice. And then on the other hand, we've also had neighbors that are like, don't really want to talk to. Yeah, I get it. So yeah, it can be good and bad. What about renting in Bulgaria? When I first came to Korea, I was really confused by the whole 장세, 월세 system.

When I first heard about 장세, I was like, how is it possible? Because like Like, you give this big chunk of money that you can almost buy an apartment with, and then this person uses them for their own good. And the only thing that's binding you is like a, like a contract, right? But then after your contract ends, if that person doesn't have that money to give it back to you, then what to do?

Yeah, you're out the money.

Can you still live in the apartment though? My husband had to explain it to me several times to understand how exactly it works.

It just seems shady a little bit.

It does seem a lot. Apparently it becoming a big problem and a big fraud in Korea. Even not only jeonse, but deposits in Korea are also quite expensive.

Very expensive.

In Bulgaria, when you do rent, your deposit would be like 1 or 2 months worth of rent. And here is like, what, 10 million, at least 15 million won. So if you live on your own, that will be like quite a large sum of money to have. In advance. But when I lived back home in Bulgaria, it was quite cheap compared to what I've heard the prices are now here. Because I— but that was like, what, almost 10 years ago? Nobody knows our age right now, right? Yeah, no agents are looking at this. But I paid something about like $200, $300 per month for a studio apartment. Like, there was one bedroom, and then like the living room with the kitchen and then one bathroom.

Wow, €200 a month, that's crazy.

But now it's like the prices, the minimum amount that you would pay would be at least double, at least $400 to $600. That's, I'm talking about like in the capital city.

So apart from renting in Bulgaria, how much does it cost to buy a home?

Well, it used to be quite cheaper compared to here in the US. But nowadays, like, prices have gone up. I guess it's inflation everywhere, like worldwide. I don't want to give false information. Fact check. So according to latest information from Google, in the outskirts of Sofia, like the capital city, we call it 2-room apartment. Oh, it's about like 60 to 65 square meters. The minimum prices would be about, um, $80,000 to $90,000 US, US dollars to buy the home.

Wow.

But then it can go up to $280,000 depending on the location.

Girl, is this cheap? I just went to like San Diego recently where a million dollar home USD is like minimum, minimum for like a one bedroom, two bedroom.

This is Bulgaria, come on.

So that's a good price. We're tempted to Go back? Yeah. And invest? Yeah, maybe for retirement. New business venture.

I told you I moved several times, so one thing that was quite a big shock was like how convenient it is to move in Korea. The moving companies, that's just a different level. Like, I loved it so much. Like, you don't even have to move a finger and they'll do everything for you. Not only they would move you out, but they will like put everything back in your new home.

So I was also surprised by this, like when they take photos to see how you have it set up and then they replicate it in the new house. I was so shocked. It is. Wow, it's crazy.

But I think the most thing that was like quite surprising for me was the sadaricha, the ladder car. Yes, it goes up to like what, 20 floors up there? And I was like, this is crazy. So I have like multiple videos of the car.

But I guess that's the only way you can do it if you have 20-story high building.

I think Korea is like, has it the most comfortable way of moving houses.

They've got a good system. How's the food?

Food is great. It's like my, one of my favorite Korean dishes, honestly.

So good. Yeah. Yeah. Are you getting full? I'm a little full.

A little full, but I can still go more.

Well, let's enjoy the rest of this meal then. Thank you so much for joining us today. I learned so much about Bulgaria and it was really interesting comparing Bulgarian culture and Korean culture. Thank you so much for watching. If you like this video, make sure to subscribe to our channel, like the video, and comment below what you thought was the most shocking difference between Bulgaria and Korea. Thank you everybody, see you next time.

See you next time.

Hello everybody and welcome to Lunch Hour English. This is going to be a super fun episode because as you can see, I've got some delicious looking food here and a beautiful guest. So this is Illy, and she also lives here in Korea. So Illy, can you introduce yourself?

Hi guys, my name is Illy. I come from Bulgaria and I've been in Korea for about 6 years now.

Woo! What do you do in Korea?

I do acting and modeling.

She's being very humble. She's an amazing actress and she is in so many advertisements here. I can't I can't walk out of my house without seeing your face somewhere. Oh my god. So what was the recent job that you've done, like one of the bigger jobs you've done recently?

A recent job that I'm kind of actually pretty happy about how it turned out is commercial for Hyundai car, Hyundai Genesis. I'm not sure if I should say that. Yeah.

Did I sign an NDA?

Was it in the contract? Yeah, it was pretty cool.

So are you hungry today? Are you ready to eat?

I am pretty hungry. I am very ready to eat right now.

So I feel like So many times when we hang out, we always get jeon and makgeolli. Yeah, that's kind of our thing.

Yeah, if it only was raining, it would be perfect, right? I know.

It is like the most like sunny and hot day today.

Right.

Well, never a bad day for jeon, right?

Of course, yeah. I'm excited for this one.

Yeah, same. So this is like, um, dongdongju. Um, I don't know if you can tell on the camera, but it's like a slushy. It's icy, so I think it's perfect for summertime. Pour you up.

Thank you.

I got you, girl. Oh, looks so good. Do you have anything like this in Bulgaria, like rice drinks, or was this very different for you?

This is very different.

Okay.

But I fell in love with makgeolli from the first try. It's so good, it's so refreshing, and I like that it's not too strong.

How do I say cheers in Bulgarian?

Na zdorave.

Na zdorave. You gotta do the tongue roll, right? Na zdorave.

Cheers.

Mmm. Ah, it's so good. It's like so refreshing on such a hot day. Oh, very nice.

I'll take this instead of ice cream any day.

Ooh, they should make a makgeolli ice cream. Is that a thing? I feel like I've seen like makgeolli shakes.

Cut this out, we are gonna have a new business, makgeolli ice cream.

We're patenting this right now. Nobody steal our idea. Should we try the food before we get into all the conversation? All right, so we've got a huge assortment of pancakes. Actually, I haven't tried many of these. Yeah, we've got tofu, kimchi, chili pepper.

This is gineep, I think.

Oh, gineep! Oh, I love gineep.

This is like perilla leaf.

I'll start with this too. Okay, dip it in the soy sauce.

Actually, I grow my own perilla leaves at home.

Oh, you do?

Yeah.

Oh, that's so cool, on your rooftop?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I have my own like little garden there.

So nice. So she actually— you own a building? Well, like humble brag. Humble. And you guys renovated this whole building.

Yeah.

And it's gorgeous. Like, her house is beautiful. So I'm just wondering about like, how does housing here in Korea, how does it compare to housing in Bulgaria?

Honestly, I was really surprised. We actually first lived in an apartment, and then because of the noise that we could always hear from the neighbors, we decided, oh, we want to live in a house.

That's rough.

Because you can hear everything from the neighbors.

You can hear them fart next door. Yeah.

So back home, I feel like compared to Korea, most people would love to have their own houses with like a yard and then a garden. And nowadays, a lot of people that live in the city, they're so like tired from all the busy city life.

Yeah.

So they would actually look into buy houses in the outskirts of big cities. And they would commute to work.

Like what you did. Yeah, basically what I did. I actually heard a term for this recently.

It's called city fatigue. City fatigue.

And I can relate to that. Living in the city, the hustle bustle, like, can be exhausting.

So, but I feel like in Bulgaria it's more doable because we're not that many people. Korea and Bulgaria have the same size of land.

Really?

And we're like just 7 million, and Korea is like, what, 50 million? So imagine if 50 million people wanted to have their own house.

Like, this—

yeah, yeah, yeah. When I first came here and then I heard that a lot of people, like, their dream would be to own an apartment.

That's a big difference.

I feel like in Bulgaria, once you buy a house, you would like live there for life. Like, you would consider it more a home, whereas in Korea, people would be looking at more of as an investment. So they will be moving out more often. I've been living here for 6 years and I moved 3 times. I would never thought that would happen back home.

When I first came to Korea and I heard of like 30-year-olds living with the family, it's very different from American culture where it's like, you know, you're 18 after high school and you're expected to pay your own rent, right? Get your own house. Live on your own and be completely independent. So to be completely honest, sometimes in the US when you're older and live at home, some people view it as you're mooching off of your family. Not saying this is true, but some people view it as that. I was really surprised this is totally normal, totally acceptable. I think it's kind of nice in a way. I wouldn't mind living with my family, but was it shocking for you?

It's quite different from Bulgaria. Actually, I feel like in most of Europe, people would get independent at an earlier point in their life. So I feel like I had this type of prejudice maybe when I was in my early 20s. I would also think, ah, you're still living with your parents and you're in your 30s, like, why? But now that I'm in my 30s, I would love to live with my parents. That would be so nice.

Isn't it funny how your attitude changes? Because me too, when I'm 20, I'm like, I never want to live with my parents again. Like, living alone is amazing. Now that I'm older and paying the bills, I'm like, I would love to live with my parents again.

Having someone to cook and wait for you at home.

Is it common for people to live together before marriage?

I really don't understand, like, people in Korea getting married and not having the experience of living together before that. So I feel like here, like, living together is a bit— is considered as a very big thing, whereas back in Europe it will be more nonchalant. Oh, let's just share rent, like we've been dating for a couple months, so let's just— so people would be doing it out of like economical value.

Yeah, yeah, like makes sense for us financially.

Yeah. And here it's more like, oh, we're living together, okay, now next step is marriage for sure.

It seems a little more controversial here, something with the religion, like religion It's Confucianism. No, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, Confucian. I think culturally in the US it's very acceptable.

Even I have a lot of friends, a lot of people would be living together, having kids without having marriage, for example.

Gotcha.

Whereas here in Korea, that's a no-no.

You learn a lot about a person by living with them.

Exactly. You should know what you're getting into in advance.

Was there any other thing when you first lived here in Korea, something even about the housing that kind of like shocked you?

Not interacting with your neighbor.

Oh, that's a good point.

In Bulgaria, you would know them like by name. You would like always talk to each other, having beer at night in the like, if you have a common space, right? You could always go and ask for sugar, for example. Whereas in Korea, you barely meet them. But I heard like there was an old tradition back in the day, you would give rice cakes whenever you move into a new place. So the second time we moved in an apartment, I remember we gave some rice cakes to the neighbors. Oh, that's such a nice thing to do.

That's so sweet. I don't think I've ever seen my neighbors in Korea.

Maybe it's an apartment building thing. If you have kids, it's a different story. But if you live on your own or if it's a couple, maybe be— it's harder.

When I was growing up, it was very common. I was very close with my neighbors. I lived on a dead-end street, and we knew almost everyone on the streets. Yeah, my dad would mow the neighbor's lawns, and we'd help each other out, barbecue together. Yeah, sometimes I feel like there's pros and cons because some days I'm like, oh, it would be like helpful, you can help each other out, and it's kind of nice And then on the other hand, we've also had neighbors that are like, don't really want to talk to. Yeah, I get it. So yeah, it can be good and bad. What about renting in Bulgaria? When I first came to Korea, I was really confused by the whole jeonse, wolsae system.

When I first heard about jeonse, I was like, how is it possible? Because like, like you give this big chunk of money that you could almost buy an apartment with, and then person uses them for their own good. The only thing that's binding you is like a, like a contract, right? But then after your contract ends, if that person doesn't have that money to give it back to you, then what to do?

Yeah, you're out the money.

Can you still live in the apartment though? My husband had to explain it to me several times to understand how exactly it works.

It just seems shady a little bit.

It does seem a lot. Apparently it is becoming a big problem in a big fraud in Korea. Even not only jeonse, but deposits in Korea are also quite expensive.

Very expensive.

In Bulgaria, when you do rent, your deposit would be like 1 or 2 months worth of rent. And here is like, what, 10 million at least, 15 million won. So if you live on your own, that would be like quite a large sum of money to have in advance. But when I lived back home in Bulgaria, was quite cheap compared to what I've heard the prices are now here. Because I— but that was like, what, almost 10 years ago? Nobody knows our age right now, right? Yeah, no agents are looking at this. But I paid something about like $200, $300 per month for a studio apartment. Like, there was one bedroom and then like the living room with the kitchen. And then one bathroom.

Wow, $200 a month, that's crazy.

But now it's like the prices, the minimum amount that you would pay would be at least double, at least $400 to $600. That's, I'm talking about like in, uh, the capital city.

So apart from renting in Bulgaria, how much does it cost to buy a home?

Well, it used to be quite cheaper compared to here in the US. But nowadays, like, prices have gone up. I guess it's inflation everywhere, like worldwide. I don't want to give false information. Fact check. So according to latest information from Google, in the outskirts of Sofia, like the capital city, we call it 2-room apartment. Oh, it's about like 60 to 65 square meters. The minimum prices would be about, um, $80,000 to $90,000 US.

$200,000 USD to buy the home. Wow.

But then it can go up to $280,000 USD depending on the location.

Girl, is this cheap? I just went to like San Diego recently where a million dollar home USD is like minimum, minimum for like a one bedroom, two bedroom.

This is Bulgaria, come on.

That's a good price. We're tempted to go back. Yeah. And invest. Yeah, maybe for retirement, new business venture.

I told you I moved several times. So one thing that was quite a big shock was like how convenient it is to move in Korea. The moving companies, that's just a different level. Like, I loved it so much. Like, you don't even have to move a finger and they'll do everything for you. Not only they would move you out, but they will like put everything back in your new home.

So I was also surprised by this, like when they take photos to see how you have it set up and then they replicate it. In the new house. I was so shocked. It is? Wow, it's crazy.

But I think the most thing that was like quite surprising for me was the 사다리차, the ladder car. Yes, it goes up to like what, 20 floors up there? And I was like, this is crazy. So I have like multiple videos of the car.

Me too. But I guess that's the only way you can do it if you have 20-story high building.

I think Korea is like has it the most. Comfortable way of moving houses.

They've got a good system. How's the food?

Food is great. It's like my— one of my favorite Korean dishes, honestly.

So good. Yeah. Yeah. Are you getting full? I'm a little full.

A little full, but I can still go more.

Well, let's enjoy the rest of this meal then. Hello everybody and welcome to Lunch Hour English. This is going to be a super fun episode because as you can see, I've got some delicious looking food here and A beautiful guest. So this is Illy, and she also lives here in Korea. So Illy, can you introduce yourself?

Hi guys, my name is Illy. I come from Bulgaria, and I've been in Korea for about 6 years now.

Woo! What do you do in Korea?

I do acting and modeling.

She's being very humble. She's an amazing actress, and she is in so many advertisements here. I can't walk out of my house without seeing your face somewhere. Oh my god. So what was the recent job that you've done, like one of the bigger jobs you've done recently?

A recent job that I'm kind of actually pretty happy about how it turned out is coming for Hyundai car, Hyundai Genesis. I'm not sure if I should say that. Yeah.

Did I sign an NDA?

Was it in the contract? Yeah, it was pretty cool.

So are you hungry today? Are you ready to eat?

I am pretty hungry. I'm very ready to eat right now.

So I feel like so many times when we hang out, we always get jeon and makgeolli. Yeah, that's kind of our thing.

Yeah, if it only was raining, it would be perfect, right? I know.

It is like the most like sunny and hot day today.

Right.

Well, never a bad day for jeon, right?

Of course, yeah. Very excited for this one.

Yeah, same. So this is like, um, Dongdongju. I don't know if you can tell on the camera, but it's like a slushie. It's icy, so I think it's perfect for summertime. Let me pour you up. Thank you. I got you, girl. Oh, looks so good. Do you have anything like this in Bulgaria, like rice drinks, or was this very different for you?

This is very different.

Okay.

But I fell in love with makgeolli from the first try. It's so good, it's so refreshing, and I like that it's not too strong.

How do I say cheers in Bulgarian?

Na zdorave!

Na zdorave. You gotta do the tongue roll, right? Na zdorave.

Cheers! Mmm.

It's so good! It's like so refreshing on such a hot day.

I'll take this instead of ice cream any day.

Ooh, they should make a makgeolli ice cream. It's not a thing? I feel like I've seen makgeolli shakes.

Cut this out. We are gonna have a new business. Makgeolli ice cream.

We're patenting this right now. Nobody steal our idea. Should we try the food before we get into— All the conversation. Alright, so we've got a huge assortment of pancakes. Actually, I haven't tried many of these. Yeah, we've got tofu, kimchi, chili pepper.

This is gineep, I think.

Oh, gineep! Oh, I love gineep.

Perilla leaf.

I'll start with this too. Okay, dip it in the soy sauce.

Actually, I grow my own perilla leaves at home.

Oh, you do?

Yeah.

Oh, that's so cool. On your rooftop? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, I have my own like little garden there.

So nice. So she actually— you own a building, like humble brag, humble. And you guys renovated this whole building. Yeah, and it's gorgeous. Like, her house is beautiful. So I'm just wondering about like, how does housing here in Korea— how does it compare to housing in Bulgaria?

Honestly, I was really surprised. We actually first lived in an apartment and then because of the noise that we could always hear from the neighbors. We decided, "Oh, we want to live in a house." That's rough. Because you can hear everything from the neighbors.

You can hear them fart next door. Yeah.

So back home, I feel like compared to Korea, most people would love to have their own houses with like a yard and then garden. And nowadays, a lot of people that live in the city, they're so like tired from all the busy life. City life. Yeah, so they would actually look into buy houses in the outskirts of big cities and they would commute to work.

Like what you did. Yeah, basically what I did. I actually heard a term for this recently, it's called city fatigue.

City fatigue.

And I can relate to that, living in the city, the hustle bustle, like can be exhausting.

So, but I feel like in Bulgaria it's more doable because we're not that many people. Korea and Bulgaria have the same size of land.

Really?

And we're like just 7 million, and Korea is like, what, 50 million? So imagine if 50 million people wanted to have their own house. Like, this is— yeah, the math is happening.

Yeah, yeah.

When I first came here, and then I heard that a lot of people, like, their dream would be to own an apartment.

That's a big difference.

I feel like in Bulgaria, once you buy a house You would like live there for life, like you would consider it more a home, whereas in Korea people would be looking at it more of as an investment. So they will be moving out more often. I've been living here for 6 years and I moved 3 times. I would never thought that would happen back home.

When I first came to Korea and I heard of like 30-year-olds living with the family, it's very different from American culture where it's like You know, you're 18 after high school and you're expected to pay your own rent, right? Get your own house, live on your own, and be completely independent. So to be completely honest, sometimes in the US when you're older and live at home, some people view it as you're mooching off of your family. Not saying this is true, but some people view it as that. I was really surprised. This is totally normal, totally acceptable. I think it's kind of nice in a way. I wouldn't mind living with my family, but was it shocking for you?

It's quite different from Bulgaria. Actually, I feel like in most of Europe people would get independent at an earlier point in their life, so I feel like I had this type of prejudice maybe when I was in my early 20s. I would also think, ah, you're still living with your parents and you're in your 30s, like why? But now that I'm in 30s, I would love to live with my parents. That would be so nice.

Isn't it funny how your attitude changes? Me too. When I'm 20, I was like, I never want to live with my parents again. Like, living alone is amazing. Now that I'm older and paying the bills, I'm like, I would love to live with my parents again.

Yeah, having someone to cook and wait for you at home.

Is it common for people to live together before marriage?

I really don't understand, like, people in Korea getting married and not having the experience of living together before that. So I feel like here, like, living together is a bit— is considered as a very big thing, whereas back in Europe it will be more nonchalant. Oh, let's just share rent, like, we've been dating for a couple months, so let's just— so people would be doing it out like economical value.

Yeah, yeah, like, makes sense for us financially.

Yeah. And here it's more like, oh, 'Oh, we're living together, okay, now next step is marriage for sure.' It seems a little more controversial here, something with the religion. That religion, it's Confucianism.

No, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, Confucian. I think culturally in the US it's very acceptable.

Even I have a lot of friends, a lot of people would be living together, having kids without having marriage, for example.

Gotcha.

Whereas here in Korea, that's a no-no.

You learn a lot about a person by living with that.

Exactly, you should know what you're getting into in advance.

Was there any other thing when you first lived here in Korea, something even about the housing that kind of like shocked you?

Not interacting with your neighbor.

Oh, that's a good point.

In Bulgaria, you would know they're like by name, you would like always talk to each other, having beer at night in the like— if you have a common space, right, you could always go and ask for sugar, for example. Whereas in Korea, you barely meet them. But I heard like there was an old tradition back in the day, you would give rice cakes whenever you move into a new place. So the second time we moved in an apartment, I remember we gave some rice cakes to the neighbors. Oh, that's such a nice thing to do.

That's so sweet. I don't think I've ever seen my neighbors in Korea.

Maybe It's an apartment building thing. If you have kids, it's a different story. But if you live on your own or if it's a couple, maybe it's harder.

When I was growing up, it was very common. I was very close with my neighbors. I lived on a dead-end street and we knew almost everyone on the streets. My dad would mow the neighbor's lawns and we'd help each other out.

Have barbecue together.

Yeah, sometimes. I feel like there's pros and cons because some days I'm like, oh, it would be like helpful. You can help each other out and it's kind of nice. And then on the other hand, we've also had neighbors that are like, don't really want to talk to. Yeah, I get it. So yeah, it can be good and bad. What about renting in Bulgaria? When I first came to Korea, I was really confused by the whole 장세, 월세 system.

When I first heard about 장세, I was like, how is it possible? Because like, like, you give this big chunk of money that you could almost buy an apartment with, and then this person uses them for their own good. And the only thing that's biting you is like a, like a contract, right? But then after your contract ends, if that person doesn't have that money to give it back to you, then what, what to do?

Yeah, you're out the money.

Can you still live in the apartment though? My husband had to explain to me several times to understand how exactly it works.

It just seems shady a little bit.

It does seem a lot. Apparently it is becoming a big problem and a big fraud in Korea. Even not only jeonse, but deposits in Korea are also quite expensive.

Very expensive.

In Bulgaria, when you, when you do rent, your deposit would be like 1 or 2 months worth of rent, and here is like what, 10 million, at least 15 million won. So if you live on your own, that will be like quite a large sum of money to have in advance. But when I lived back home in Bulgaria, it was quite cheap compared to what I've heard the prices are now here. Because I paid— but that was like, what, almost 10 years ago? Nobody knows our age right now, right? Yeah, no agents are looking at this.

But I paid something about about like $200, $300 per month for a studio apartment.

Like there was one bedroom and then like the living room with the kitchen and then one bathroom.

Wow, $200 a month, that's crazy.

But now it's like the prices, the minimum amount that you would pay would be at least double, at least $400 to $600. That's, I'm talking about in the capital city.

So apart from renting in Bulgaria, how much does it cost to buy a home?

Well, it used to be quite cheaper compared to here in the US, but nowadays like prices have gone up. I guess it's inflation everywhere, like worldwide. I don't want to give false information. Fact check. So according to latest information from Google, in the outskirts of Sofia, like the capital city. We call it 2-room apartment. Oh, it's about like 60 to 65 square meters. The minimum prices would be about, um, $80,000 to $90,000 US, US dollars to buy the home. Wow. But then it can go up to $280,000 depending on the location.

Girl, is this cheap? I just went to like San Diego recently where a million-dollar home USD is like minimum, minimum for like a one-bedroom, two-bedroom.

This is Bulgaria, come on.

That's a good price. We're tempted to go back. Yeah, and invest. Yeah, maybe for retirement, new business venture.

I told you I moved several times, so one thing that was quite a big shock was like how convenient it is to move in Korea. The moving companies, that's just a different level. Like, I loved it so much. Like, you don't even have to move a finger and they'll do everything for you. Not only they would move you out, but they will like put everything back in your new home.

So I was also surprised by this, like when they take photos to see how you have it set up and then they replicate it in the new house. I was so shocked.

It is.

Wow, it's crazy.

But I think The most thing that was like quite surprising for me was the sadaricha. The ladder car. Yes, that goes up to like what, 20 floors up there? And I was like, this is crazy. So I have like multiple videos of the car.

Me too. But I guess that's the only way you can do it if you have 20-story high building.

I think Korea is like, has it the most comfortable way of moving houses.

They've got a good system. How's the food?

Food is great. It's like my, one of my favorite Korean dishes, honestly.

So good.

Yeah.

Yeah. Are you getting full? I'm a little full.

I'm a little full, but I can still go more.

Well, let's enjoy the rest of this meal then.