Towels and Napkins

In South Korea it is very humid so thick towels like you might see in California don't exist because they would just mold on the racks of the wall. So, when you are given towels for drying off out of the shower or bath you are usually given something that looks like a kitchen towel in the U.S. It is very thin and hard to manage for Californians who are used to big fluffly towels the size of beach towels often. So, this takes some getting used to.

Also, napkins. Napkins are often the size of kleenex sheets. This is because paper is much more expensive in South Korea than in the U.S. Also, there are no clothes dryers that I have seen so far, even though in hotel rooms often there are washing machines for your clothes alongside microwave ovens and gas burners on the top of the kitchen sink area.

So, all these things take some getting used to along with showers that drain into the whole bathroom. So, often when you are in your hotel or apartment bathoom there is a toilet and then there might be either a Grohe type of shower wand that might be either connected to the sink or separate and just installed on a shower wall. So, the walls of the whole bathroom might be tiled along with the floor and then when you shower you might be getting the walls of the bathroom wet along with the mirror and sink. And often the shower wand on the wall also might be directed into the sink when not being used so you don't wet the floor in the bathroom so much that you slip and fall. So, at every hotel they have rubber sandals for bathroom areas so you don't slip and fall on the tile floors when they are wet.

However, I wear a size 15 men's shoe so these sandals aren't going to help me at all because most Koreans are shorter than Americans, even though sometimes there are male Koreans over 6 feet tall.

Also, there are not water heaters in tanks like we have in the U.S. I think maybe it is only the U.S. Canada and Mexico that have these because the cost of power to heat them is so much more most other places.

So, instead you have the more economical water heaters that heat the water in the pipe as you are using it (which also takes some getting used to). What this means is first you go to where the power turns this water pipe heater on and then you have to wait until it has heated the water enough for you to use it. Then after your shower you turn the water heater off to save power.

However, if you are in a hotel room they leave this device on all the time that usually goes on automatically when you put your magnetic key into the slot near the front door that turns all the power on at once to your room. So, when you leave literally all lights and power to your room turn off until you return, even your refrigerator in most cases.