Mr. Toilet House

The highlight over our Chuseok Break was, of course, Mr. Toilet House.  The only toilet museum in the world within a toilet-shaped house!  (Definitely not the only toilet museum; if anyone’s interested in an around-the-world-toilet-museum extravaganza, please do let us know.)

Here now, is the long awaited toilet house tour, complete with an original King 5 News (not so) live report.

The person behind (ha!) the Mr. Toilet House was Sim Jae-duck who, who according to the brochure, “lived the life in full and passionate devotion to develop the toilet culture movement.” 



He was the mayor of Suwon (where the house is) and built this toilet shaped house to spread awareness.  He lived in it for two years until he died.  After his death, his wife turned it into a museum.  



The bathroom was, of course, in the middle of the first floor.



And, there was a lovely garden with a variety of sculptures surrounding the house.













The DMZ

On Satruday we went on a tour to the DMZ.  You pretty much have to take a tour to get into these areas, unless of course you join the Korean military.

One of our stops was at a tunnel the North Koreans made to attack Seoul.  The South Korean government learned about it from a North Korean defector in the 1970s. According to our tour guide, they think there are probably many more tunnels out there, but the government only knows where a few of them are.  

I think it’s lovely that they’ve turned a site of possible attack into a tourist attraction.

Here’s a map of the tunnel.

 

No cameras were allowed inside, but they did have professional artists who would paint your portrait for a small fee.  This painting is (of course) of Ryan and me.  You can tell which one is Ryan because he had to bend over in the tunnel due to his height disability.

In the gift shop they sold North Korean wine.  South Korea purchases almost nothing from North Korea; this is one of the few exceptions.  Apparently, you can only buy it in the DMZ.

 


Ryan trying to cross in North Korea.

 




Our next stop was a train station.  Before 2008 it was used to send supplies to North Korea.  But since then, trains only travel south from here.  It was almost empty except for tourists and soldiers.

 




Next we went to this lookout.  You could only take pictures behind the yellow line since they are afraid that North Korean soldiers will see the flash and start shooting.  Down below we could see two villages in the DMZ.  They were there before the war and were allowed to stay.  Our tour guide told us that the North Korean town is just a fake, with buildings but nothing inside.  They just wanted to make it look like they had a nice town on the border.  There is also a competition for who has the biggest, tallest flag.  Seriously.  They keep building taller poles.  Right now North Korea is in the lead.  Sadly, we couldn’t get a good picture of the towns and the flags due to the camera line of death.

 



These pictures show the fencing and barbed wire along the Han River.  The river starts in North Korea and in the past spies have tried to enter South Korea through it.  So the fencing and guard stations go all the way to, well, Seoul at least.