Food and Toilets, weird right?

So let's start with food shall we.

I have become a little fed up with my food situation.  Unfortunately living in a small town there is only a limited supply of resources.  So that can be rather trying since I like to make food myself.  There are some more advanced meals which I like to make, but they take a while to prepare and the ingredients can be pricy.  So that means on a daily basis I am left with what I can buy from the local shops and the market should I catch it when it comes through town (which can be difficult since it seems to follow no actual schedule).  Occasionally I am able to gather other ingredients from the cities, but that is a rarity.  Of course I can grab a meal from one of the many resteraunts in town, but the problem there is that, although there are many resteraunts, there is still not a lot of choice. 

Of course if I were Korean having very little choice about food would not bother me as it seems Koreans do not get gastronomically bored.  This may be because of the way they ar ebrought up...who knows.  It turns out the kids in my school have rice, kimchi and soup for breakfast, rice, kimchi and soup for lunch and can you guess?  Yes that's right rice, kimchi and soup for dinner.  One of my co-teachers tried to explain to me that outside of school most people do not have rice for lunch, instead they probably have noodles.  Which of course is SO different!  Well it seems to work for them, but it does not do much for my mental stability, which is wavering as it is.

TOILETS!!!

Now I have discussed this subject before, the lack of toilet paper and the bizarre squats.  However today I look at the total lack of privacy.  Most restrooms/public toilets in Korea seem to lack basic privacy.  Yes there are doors on the cublices, which is good.  However there is not much priority put on blocking the rest of the toilets from view.  For instance in my school, although there are doors to block the view of toilets they are never used.  People just leave the doors wide open, which frequently means that the guys are using the urinals while putting themselves on public display.  Now while there are doors that are not used the ones closest to my room are glass doors, with only the bottom half frosted, so anyone even slightly tall can see over.  So even when I should make any attempt to provide myself some privacy it is easily foiled.  Sometimes I even retreat to the downstairs toilets because students do not use them.  But the problem there is that Koreans must have the windows open at all times so, on the ground level the toilet windows are open putting everyone inside in full display once more.  To make matters even worse over by the door the mirrors have been set up over the sinks so that people outside can basically see in through the reflections.

The lack of privacy on toilets is not simply for schools, but with all public toilets that I have come across.  Even to the extent that in a bar we often frequent in Tongdosa has a unisex toilet and often women will just walk past you at the urinal to use the one stall.  It is very strange and rather off putting.  I generally avoid a lot of discomfort, at least at school by ducking into the cubicals, simply to escape overly curious students.

I remain an adamant suporter of the western toilets and the privacy that comes with it, even though westerners treat their toilet facilities worse on whole.