Suwon-Part 1: Mr. Toilet House

Nothing says Happy St. Patrick's Day like green sweatshirts, green, chocolate chip pancakes, milk in green glasses and green flowers.

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Toilet Museum

You probably think I'm obsessed with toilets, but I promise you I'm not.  I am though very keen on finding unique things to do in Korea and checking them out.  In my research of fun things to do, I have found out that Koreans are obsessed with toilets.  If you remember from a blog post a few weeks ago I posted this picture and made a few jokes about it:

KTA: Korea Toilet Association

I joked about where they hold their meetings and what they discuss at their meetings.  I even joked about possibly joining the Association as a resume builder.  So you can imagine my surprise when, in my research, I not only found the answer to my questions but I also found a museum that we could check out that was all about toilets.

The only problem with this museum was I could not find directions to it anywhere.  I read a bunch of articles about it but none of them came with directions. I knew it was in the city of Suwon which is about an hour south of Seoul, and a bunch of websites said the museum was not easy to find.  I finally came across one website that had the address and some very basic directions.  I printed them and our family set off on the ultimate Korean adventure.  This adventure was actually 2 part adventure.  First we were going to visit the toilet museum then we were going to hike around the Suwon fortress wall.  The fortress wall will be another blog post.  

We rode the 1.5 hr subway ride down to Suwon then walked around the massive station trying to figure out where the bus stop was.  The public transportation in Korea is awesome.  The subways go way outside the cities and once you get off the subways there are buses that will take you to most any part you can't reach by subway.  You just have to know where to get on the bus.  That was our first problem.  We couldn't find the bus stop.  Often times there will be numerous exits out of one subway station.  Sometimes there can be up to 12-14 different exits out of a single station and all of them leading in different directions and very far apart.  So, it is very important to know which exit you need.  This station was very large with quite a few exits, but my directions told us to go out exit 2 and turn right and you will see the bus stop.  Unfortunately, they will often renumber the exits without any notice or warning which we are pretty sure is what happened because when we went out exit 2 we were just in a huge parking garage.  Now we had no idea where to go, we finally found someone that spoke enough English to help us figure out where the bus stop was.  We found our bus and were excited to be heading in what we thought was the correct direction.  Unfortunately, this was not the case.  While we were on the correct bus we were going the wrong way on it.  We figured this out when the bus was completely empty, except for our family, and the driver parked it at the bus depot.  Now, we realized we were pretty much lost in this foreign city.  We knew where we wanted to go, but had no idea how to get there.  This area did not have nearly as many foreigners as Seoul does therefore not as many people spoke English or were able to help us.  We finally got on the correct bus but quickly realized we were at the opposite end of the city from where we wanted to be and we had about a 2 hour bus ride ahead of us.  After a few stops we got off and found a taxi.  Because this museum isn't a very popular tourist attraction the taxi driver didn't have any clue where it was.  Thankfully, I had printed the address off in Korean and he had a GPS.  It was about a 15 minute taxi ride, which was much better then the 2 hour bus ride we were going to take.  

In our adventures we have quickly learned to be flexible and go with the flow.  But I have to be honest, this adventure really tested our patience.  By the time we actually arrived, the family morale was pretty low.  It had taken us over 2.5 hours to find this place.  We never tell the girls where we are going ahead of time, in case we can't find it or it is closed.  So they didn't know where we were going and kept asking us questions about why it was taking so long to find it.  We were just about at the point of giving up when the taxi pulled up and stopped beside this:

Yep, that is a building shaped like a toilet with a gold looking poop swirl beside it. 

 To the right was this very interesting mural:

Immediately, the girls were very intrigued about this place.  They both made numerous jokes about the mural.  Can you blame them, look at it, how could you not make jokes about it?

This sign was posted outside of the entrance, which gave us some history about the place and the founder:

Re-read the above sign if you missed the fact that this toilet shaped museum actually used to be a toilet-shaped house.

Notice it is the "first and biggest toilet-shaped construction in Korea" does this mean that there are now more toilet shaped constructions in Korea?

A "Humorous Poop" artwork contest had just ended a few weeks before we visited and much of the artwork was on display for us to see inside of the museum.

The museum was actually set on very beautiful grounds.  It was winter, so not much was in bloom, but during the spring and summer I'm sure the landscaping is full of flowers.  We decided to go inside before we walked around the grounds.

An aerial view of the museum.

The museum began with a history of the toilets in Suwon.

 It then had a whole section on the World Toilet Association that Mr. Sim, the former mayor of Suwon, founded and was the first president of. His original goal was to improve the toilets in Suwon before the country hosted the 2002 World Cup.  The association is actually very large with chapters all around the world. 

It was at this point in the museum that one of the employees approached our family with a very official looking camera and asked us if we minded getting a few pictures taken.  Of course, we posed for a few pictures and I am sure at some point our family will be a on "Mr. Toilet House" brochure.

The museum, while incredibly bizarre, was actually very interesting.  They showed the symbols for men's and women's toilets all over the world.  Some of them made us laugh.

   Here was the winning  artwork from the "Humorous Poop" drawing contest on display.

It was crazy to think that this was actually a person's house at one point.  There was a real bathroom in the middle of the museum, that was not open for public use but we could take pictures with Mr. Toilet.

The glass behind the girls was very cool.  If you flipped a switch it would go from frosted to clear.  It was how they could have privacy for a bathroom right in the middle of the house.

We walked around the museum a bit more, talked to the museum employees (who were very excited to see foreigners in their museum) and gave a small donation to help fund the museum's mission to improve toilet hygiene and education before we headed outside to walk around the park around the museum.

 Everything outside of the museum was poop themed:

Who in the world poops in a swirl shape?  Looks more like an ice cream then a poop to me.

Even the plant markers were in the shape of a poop.

There were these pooping statues all over the park.  There are no words that I can add to most of these pictures so I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

 

Lucy is not happy to have stepped in a pile of poop.

I was trying to offer him a bit of encouragement.  He seemed like he really needed it.

This whole thing to us was very bizarre and caused us to snicker at the strangeness of it all.  But we were not sure if the Koreans took this seriously or if they saw the humor in this very strange museum as well.  While we were outside we got our answer, there were a few kids that were running around making all kinds of funny poses next to the statues and their parents were laughing and taking pictures.  They thought it was just as strange as we did.

Before we left we went back inside and took a family picture.

I asked if I could purchase one of the pens the employees were using.  They wouldn't let me purchase it, but they gave me one for free. 

Overall, our family had a great time at this museum.  Unfortunately, it was so difficult to find I don't think we will ever get back there again. And truthfully, one toilet museum in my lifetime is probably enough.

Korean Snack Foods - An "easy" hike with Uncle Joe

Things You Would Only Find In Korea-Part 5:

Choosing a snack food in Korea can be overwhelming at times.  There are so many different choices and most of them are very cheap.  You can't walk a block anywhere in this city and not see either a convenience store or a street vendor selling some sort of snack food.  Some of their snack foods our family really likes and some others not so much.  

I love to eat and I will try just about any food at least once.  And for the most part there are not many foods that I absolutely cannot stand to eat.  (Most of the time it is the texture that bothers me more then the taste.)  But recently I have come across a few foods here in Seoul that I just could not even bring myself to try.  Sometimes things are not made to go together...

Example 1-Peanut Butter and Squid

The squid in this picture looks angry to me, I think it is because he is being forced to wear a peanut butter arrow hat.  I would be mad too if I was forced to wear a peanut butter arrow hat. 

I really like squid and I like it prepared all different ways, but I could not get into eating it with peanut butter on it.  The line to buy this stuff was fairly long so it must be good.  We were rushing through a bus terminal when I saw this so there was no time to wait in line and get some.  Maybe if I ever see it again I will be brave enough to try it.

Example 2-Red Bean Paste and Green Tea Bread

They sell this, Red Bean Green Tea Roll, as a snack cake in the Starbucks around here.  Red bean paste is very popular in Korea.  It is kind of sweet and they often will put inside of pastries.  I actually really like red bean paste in many things, but the green tea-red bean paste combination just didn't appeal to me. The fact that the bread on the outside was an off green color didn't help either. 

Maybe another day I will be feeling a bit more brave to try some of these things...


On the other hand there are a few Korean snack foods that our family loves.  The girls especially love the Korean cookies.  When ever we go into a convenience store Lucy always asks to buy these.

Their favorite are the ones in the pink tube.  They are small character cookies that have chocolate inside.  A tube like the one pictured above would cost less then $1.00 at a convenience store.  They make a perfect "end of a hike" snack.

Another family favorite snack are called Manjoo.  It is small donuts with a sweet cream inside.  The cream isn't nearly as sweet as American cream but it has a really good taste.  Manjoo are sold in subway stops and you can smell them long before you can see them.  The girls know at which subway stops they sell Manjoo and they know I'm a sucker for the smell so they know that most of the time when we pass a small stand we are going to be making a pit stop.

They make them in these small presses.  They are shaped like an ear of corn.

They sell 2 different types of Manjoo.  The corn and the walnut ones.  We all like the corn ones better.

You can buy a bag of them for about $2.50.  There are 12-15 that come in a bag.

A small donut of deliciousness.

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In America, the president lives in the White House.  In Korea, the president lives in the Blue House.  It is named the blue house because the roof is blue.  It is easy to spot from far away because of the color of the roof.  Right before Uncle Joe came to visit us we were told about a hike that went around the back of the Blue House.  We were told it was a simple hike that would only take us an hour or so to complete.   In our minds that meant a nice easy, paved path that would take us on a scenic walk around the Blue House.   While Uncle Joe was visiting us, Russ took a day off from work and we decided to set out on this "easy" hike.

As soon as we began our hike we realized this was not going to be an easy stroll along a path as we had first thought.  The "path" was actually an uneven, rock stairway STRAIGHT up and over a mountain, down the other side and over a second mountain.  It was much more difficult then we had anticipated. We were not dressed correctly or prepared at all for this type of hike.  I had on winter boots and a turtleneck sweater, not really hiking clothing.

We decided to do as much of the hike as we could.  The scenery was beautiful as we hiked up the steps.

After we made it to the top of the first mountain we stopped to take a break. 

At this point we were all hungry and tired.  So we just turned around and headed back down the mountain the same way we came up.  We never even got to see the Blue House during our hike.  Hopefully we can go back another time when we are better prepared and actually finish the hike.  We now know it is not just a simple hike on a paved path.