Troubles with Heat & Hot Water

This is the second time I've struggled with both heat and hot water. In Korea, they have a very nice system of heat that runs through the floor. The pipes are filled with very hot water, and it makes for a very nice walking experience. The floor heat and the hot water are both controlled by the same box that is located just above my washing machine in my little laundry room. This stopped working a couple weeks ago, and eventually it was fixed. But sadly, on Sunday before I left to meet with my friend, Amarisse, I noticed that the little yellow light on my heat box was blinking furiously to let me know that something was wrong. I didn't have time do deal with it at the moment, so I just left and had decided to return from Seoul early to talk to my crazy adjuma, land lady. Adjuma is a word used to refer to old ladies in Korea. Sometimes they are angry and bitter, but sometimes they are strangely wonderful.

She is one hell of a woman, though. She actually reminds me a great deal of my Grandma Maynes. She is a very hard working lady that I am comfortable saying has the same sort of demeanor as my grandmother, only Korean. She always talks to me in this extremely fast paced voice that I can't understand. Then she just stares at me, as if to say, "This all makes sense, right?" It never does.

Moving on; she came down to look into my problem around 7pm. After poking around for awhile, she left and came back with tools in hand, and gestured that she needed me to help move my laundry machine. I complied, but she was upset to see that there were wet clothes inside. She looked at me as though I was the dumbest guy on the planet. She started throwing all of my clothes on floor, because obviously, 5 pounds of clothes were going to make all the difference in the world while moving that washing machine away from the heat box.

She left... again... and came back with a space heater. I'm pretty sure that my pipes were frozen, because there is not insulation in that laundry area of my apartment. She kept coming and going and coming and going, until it was around 1am. She gestured that it was time for me to goto bed, and through all of her speedy Korean, I could make out Hagwan and sleep. I was a little uneasy about sleeping while she was working through the night to warm my apartment, but after she told me a few times, a sleepy me retired to my bed.

I dozed off once she had left my apartment, assuming that she had decided to call it a night. Boy, was I wrong. She came back with more tools and continued banging away. After the next exit and reentry, she did the sweetest thing. She brought down a huge warm blanket for me. Avalon had only provided for me a really thin comfortable that doesn't really do much to keep a person warm, and she came in rubbing her shoulders, telling me that I must be so damn cold with no heat. She was right, but I would have survived just fine. Either way, she covered me up and basically tucked me into bed. That's right, I was tucked in by my own person adjuma.

She worked worked worked until 4:30 in the morning, when she nudged me, nodded, and gave me the good news that I would be taking a warm shower in the morning.

Interesting night.