"Bathroom floors are rarely dry. When many Koreans bathe at home, they stand on the floor and spray the shower nozzle over themselves. All Korean bathrooms have a drain on the floor for this purpose. A pair of rubber shoes is kept just outside every bathroom, so that the feet do not get wet whenever one steps inside. A bathroom is usually cleaned by splashing water over the mirror, sink, and floor."
Huh, I thought to myself, we didn't see pictures of our bathroom. This might be interesting...
The Reality.
I was pretty relieved to see typical western bathroom fixtures - normal sit-down flush toilet, typical glass shower doors, sink, the works. And actually, the bathroom passes my test of a good place to live - a strong, hot shower. Happy. :)
view from the doorway
The one way that our bathroom is Korean is that it's made to spray water all over the darn place - the outlet is even water-proof (although I'm not testing its limits). There's a good one inch gap under the shower doors so that water intentionally gets all over the floor when you shower. The bathroom also drops down about 3 inches so unless you were swimming, the water wouldn't really get out in the hallway.
Koreans seem to pride themselves on cleanliness, so I'm guessing this is to regularly wash the bathroom floor. Lucky for dry socks everywhere, it's typical to put these wood "mats" that are raised off the floor. It was one of the first things we bought.
yea, wood mats!
So thanks to the Culture Shock book, I knew the deal with water getting everywhere, and actually was pretty excited to do just that - spray the water everywhere. Most bathrooms are the opposite, right? Keep the water in the tub! Don't splash around! But not here, splash as much as you like!
Cleaning in Action:
I think it's pretty efficient. I was able to scrub the heck out of the entire room, and then give it a solid spray down. For a while, I'm going to let Kyle get away with not cleaning the bathroom - it's too much fun to share. That is, at least until it feels like work...
Share with the Dogs?
We have a Korean friend with two little dogs, and she has them trained to do their business on the bathroom floor. Has it's perks, right? Living high up in an apartment building, you don't have to walk your dogs all the time, and it's as easy as spraying away the #1 and throwing the #2 in the toilet. I tried to convince Kyle that we could buy a cute pekingese puppy from the E-Mart & train him like this, but he didn't really dig the idea. (some day I'll get a dog!)
Well, now you know what to do if you ever walk into a Korean bathroom and see a yellow puddle on the floor - stick to the wood mats!
We're silly and adventurous, computer geeks and yoga peeps.
May 08, 2009
shawna davidson
Love
Shawna
May 10, 2009
the other kyle's wife
May 11, 2009
Linda
May 19, 2009
Bessie
The center bathroom drain sounds really awkward! We stayed in a few places with that, but the drain was always near the shower. It was just odd to have the entire room slanting toward the drain...
May 16, 2009
mumsie
May 19, 2009
Bessie
August 19, 2009
Sara
August 21, 2009
Bessie