6 Things that do NOT remind me of home

As everyone can tell it has been quite the learning process within the last week. Not a day goes by that I do not learn something. In this post I am going to tell you about the interesting things I have come across that affect my daily life apart from adventures I have had. I will give you the nitty gritty details as I explain how I came upon these customs and how I am dealing.

1.  Here in Korea, a lot of public bathrooms do not allow you to throw your toilet paper in the toilet. You must throw your toilet paper into the trash that resides in the stall.
Now, the first time I saw this I was like "you have GOT to be kidding me." There I was in a bathroom at the place I was training at and there was a sign posted on the door reading " Please do not flush your toilet paper down the toilet as the plumbing is a little different here" or something along those lines. To this I laughed and continued to do as I always do and throw my toilet paper into the toilet. I cant say that I wasn't a little worried that the result of my doing that would make the toilet clog or squirt dirty toilet water at me just to shove Karma in my face, but to my delight it did not. I shrugged this moment off and thought that maybe it was just this one place that this was a rule. I couldn't help but wonder what people did when they took a poop. I mean, poop does NOT smell like roses no matter who you are. So imagine poopy toilet paper that belongs to someone else hanging out in the trash can that sits only a foot away from you as you do your business. Luckily, this has not happened to me and I am lucky enough to have a toilet paper friendly toilet at my apartment, but at my school campus.. I do not. I have just been going with the flow and doing as the natives do, but I am not fully comfortable with it yet. Dont get me wrong the bathrooms are really clean, its just that little tid bit that throws a foreigner off.

2. The shower is the entire bathroom. Yes, you read it right, there is no shower door or even a little nook with a 3 foot long wall that separates the other parts of the bathroom. Once you step into the bathroom you are essentially in the shower as well. I will show pictures as I post about my apartment, but basically there is a shower head that sits in a holder on the wall of my bathroom. It connects to my sink, so think of your bathtub and how you can choose the bath setting or shower setting and when you want a shower you push in the  metal stick thing, thats what I do with my sink only I loosen it to open the flood gates to my shower head and badabing bada boom I'm scrubba dub dubbin. Everything gets wet in there, but theres a fan and a drain on the floor that takes care of that. Pretty different, but its the Korean way!

3. They have floor heaters and water heaters  that combine. If you want water heater, you must turn it on a certain way and turn off the floor heater. If you do not do this or learn how to do it properly you will have cold showers and it will suck. This is a little more of a personal hatred as I have been taking luke warm to cold showers for the past 4 days. I cannot seem to figure it out and I have the hairiest legs I have ever had because I do not want to stay in the shower long enough to give them a quick shave, by now I would have to have a stand by razor to take over when the other one clogs with my braid able hairs. Maybe, Ill just go with the corn row look on my legs.. ;)

4. At E mart,which is like K mart but in a tall high rise building and has a full grocery store built in, you use boxes to carry your stuff in home, NOT bags. After you are done checking out you take your things to a table that's across from the check out lanes and there sits tape, scissors and flat boxes to choose from. There is a method to this and you must quickly form a box, put your things in, and get the heck out of the way. Surprisingly there has not been a long wait at the boxing station. It was a little weird though and when I decided to venture out to E mart by myself, which was a 5 block walk from my apartment, I was not happy to carry a large box back the entire way.  They do this to reuse the boxes they had food and product in, for a more green way to live. Kind of smart actually.

5. They split up trash, recycling and food waste. They have special trash bags they use and they do not like it when you use just a regular bag for your trash..oops. They are very particular about splitting everything up to create a green environment. I have yet to fully adopt this, but will get there once I figure out when to even bring my full garbage bags.

6. Being a minority. I have never been a full fledged minority where basically everywhere I went there were way more people different than myself. Obviously I knew this would be the case upon even signing up for the job. I do not mind at all but it is really weird at times. People looking at me funny or a kid once even pointed at me as I was carrying my E mart box back to my apartment. I at first chalked it up to him pointing at the building behind me, but when his finger moved as I moved as His faced pressed up against the cab window I knew he was looking at me. I couldn't blame him though, I did look really good that day :).

Those are just a few things, as of now that I can think of that are way different than what I am used to at home. I am still really enjoying myself even though I have yet to make friends with people that I hang out with outside of work. Its fine though I have to remind myself that I have only been in Deajeon a week and that friends will come. Also, that I have plenty of time left here to see things. I often think about how I shouldn't be at home watching countless episodes of Sex and the City after work but should be out checking things out! I will have plenty of time to do that as I become more comfortable with my surroundings, plus these kids whipe me out! That's all for now, as I have to go tutor the cutest little boy in a few minutes. I will post again soon with updates on housing and my first week at work! My confidence and Independence are being tested, but so far I think I am acing it.

Ab