Although air pollution is a serious problem here (not as bad as in India or China but still...), Koreans are environmentally-friendly on a daily basis. There are numerous examples:
- Apartment buildings have recycling bins and COMPOST bins!
- Starbucks gives you back 10 cents if you recycle your cup (it's automatic too!)
- When you order at Starbucks, they give you a plastic thing that you bring with you to your table. When your order is ready, it buzzes, vibrates and lights are flashing
- Street food is an interesting industry; it's everywhere at night time and quite cheap to buy and to run. Everything is in their pick-up truck and they just set a big tent for people to sit, eat and drink.
- McDonald's have a recycling system as well
- "Umbrella cover": that's so smart! You know when it's raining and people walk in shops or restaurants with water dripping all over the place and making the floor both slippery and dangerous? Well the solution is simple: an "umbrella-cover" dispenser! You slip it in that long and thin plastic bag that fits your umbrella, just as shown by my good friend Woo Kyung ^^
And toilets are WELL-THOUGHT! :
- The courtesy bell....... people have a tendency to flush the toilet when they're going for number two and that is just a waste of water. So the courtesy bell is a button you press that makes the sound of a flushing toilet!
- Toilet paper always goes in the garbage, not the toilet- Auto toilets are public bathrooms; you pay 10 cents and get full service including a welcome message, classical music, and it's very very clean. I recall those in France... they'd sometimes cost a buck and be some sort of junkie paradise.
Last night as I paid a visit to Kyungah in Ilsan, a town outside Seoul, we got to see a kind of outdoor and live Korean-made Disney show at the local Lake Park. The place was filled with people and little kids running around!
It's basicallya lights and water show out of a huge water fountain. It's quite spectacular because the show revolves around music themes and whenever the musical tension would build up, the gush would go higher.
We ended up going the the game room and I kicked her ass at a car race game ^^ Then we went for delicious ice cream, sitting on swings!
Outside there were beautiful lights that looked just like Christmas time!
I thought it's funny that even Korean mascots are thin as hell! Look at those legs hehe
