Nuclear and/or Fire Scare at Sidae Hanuri

Ok, I had a very interesting, confusing, and slightly alarming night last night. So I wake up at 4am to the sound of sirens. I lay in bed and initially think that they're coming from an ambulance passing near my apartment. After a few minutes, however, I notice that the sound is not moving away. Perplexing. I also notice that it doesn't really sound like an ambulance. It actually sounded most like an air raid siren. However, I thought the odds that we were being nuked by North Korea was pretty low, so I promptly threw that hypothesis out. I then thought that it may be emanating from my apartment building. Ok, is my apartment building on fire? Should I evacuate?

I get out of bed and go out on my balcony thing and open the glass door. No one appears to be gathering outside. I go out into my hallway and look out the 'window' (it's actually a big hole...there's no glass installed so I don't think it could be called a window) on the other side of the apartment. No one is gathering out there, either. Wtf? I walk into the stairwell near the elevator and notice that the noise is significantly louder here and is definitely coming from within my building somewhere...and seems to be coming from a floor above me. Crap, what the hell is going on? I go back into my apartment.

On one hand, I'm not too alarmed because no one else in the building seems to be taking any notice of the noise (to my knowledge, anyway). Also, I think that if it was a fire they'd probably utilize the intercom system and make some sort of warning to everyone. On the other hand, what the hell is it??? It has to be something. And it's a not pleasant sounding loud noise/siren going off in the middle of the night so it can't be a good thing, can it??

So I decide to go outside to check things out. I put on my coat and as a precaution in case it is a fire I grab my wallet and passport. Don't want those to burn up in a fire! I decide that taking the elevator may not be the best option so I head down the stairs (remember: I'm on the 11th floor). I get to the 6th floor and notice the elevator moving and it stops on the 6th floor. It opens and a guy steps out. I look at him and say, "mo-at?" [what?...(I think)] He rambles something to me in Korean. I have no idea what he says. Another guy arrives on the scene. They talk. The second guy walks away and goes into what I presume is his apartment, not to be seen by me again. Ok, so he's not alarmed. I look at the first Korean guy and gesture "what?" again. He talks in Korean again but also mimicks sleeping and 'no.' I don't know if he means "don't go to sleep or you'll die" or "I couldn't sleep so I'm trying to figure out what the noise is." He then gets back into the elevator and goes down to the 1st floor.

At this point I just say, "screw it." It can't be that bad if no one seems too alarmed and people are still using the elevator. So I walk back up to my floor and go back into my apartment. A couple minutes later the noise stops. Huzzah!! Of course, it's now 4:30am and I'm not tired anymore. It took me a long time to fall back asleep and I slept croddy. I was really tired at school today. And to top it off I hate that there's no way to find out what the hell that was. Weird. I mentioned it to my co-teacher and she concurred that if it was a fire they'd use the intercom thing to yell at everyone. But anyway, I didn't burn to death or get bombed, so that was good.