Recycling and reducing trash have always been topics that I am passionate about. Thankfully, Korea is equally passionate.
I've recorded a series of videos to show how recycling and trash collection are done at our apartment.
The habit of separating your food waste, recyclables and trash is encouraged everywhere, especially noticeable at fast food restaurants. Here are pics from Burger King. They have separate bins for food waste, plastic lids and straws, cups, liquid waste, and then actual trash.
In our elevators, we have posters helping to determine what constitutes food waste. It says that Food Waste should not include Liquid Waste. You should pour liquid waste down the sink (like soda, tea, coffee, etc.). Food Waste includes: leftovers, garden scraps, fruit skins/rinds (anything that can be eaten by livestock).
Forbidden garbage includes: wood, plywood, cans, baskets, umbrellas, light bulbs, bamboo sticks, batteries, hangers, ceramics, and books. It warns that if you put trash that is forbidden into the chute, the whole apartment may be shut down due to clogging of pipelines and breakdown of collection facilities.
Away from the apartment, there are other trash and food waste receptacles that feed right into the vacuum chutes.
This is a quote from the atlantic.com: "all of Songdo’s trash is sucked into underground pipes, and is automatically sorted and recycled, buried, or burned for fuel. These pipes connect all apartment buildings and offices; consequently, there are no street-corner trash cans or garbage trucks. Among the first of its kind in the world, the system currently requires just seven employees for the entire city."
This is a quote from readwrite.com: "Instead of
unwieldy garbage cans and noisy trucks, a citywide, vacuum-powered system
literally sucks garbage to the dump. Buildings are hooked up to the garbage
grid, but there are also portals in a few places around town. The benefits: No
trash in public, easier disposal, fewer trucks on the streets, and lower
vehicle emissions."
underground vacuum hoses in the Third Zone Automated Waste Collection Plant
And lastly, if you have something large, like a piece of furniture, to dispose of, you purchase a white sticker and you put the item near the garbage chutes with the sticker on it. We have noticed that once an item is placed outside with a white sticker on it, it becomes fair game for others to take it. We picked up a bunk bed ladder and our friends got a couch from a coffee shop going out of business.
When Eric started going to work every day, I made it my mission to take the kids on field trips around town. Always with a purpose to teach them something new. Every day here I learn something new too. On this particular day, I wanted to take the kids to the beach. I had no idea what to expect, but I knew of a bus that stopped at a beach, and that is where our journey began.
We should have been suspicious when this was our view out the bus window while crossing the Incheon Bridge.
This boat is sitting on the mudflats because the tide is out.
This person is digging for clams.
When we arrived at Eurwangni Beach on Yongyudo Island, the tide was very far out. Ridiculously far out. So, there was a teachable moment. Kids, let me teach you about tides. :)
How I love Korean culture and the habit of taking your shoes off when going inside. We saw this played out, even at the beach, with a group of preschoolers on a field trip.
Seriously, how cute is this?
With the tide being out, we discovered many creatures in the sand. Some just left clues to make us guess.
Others came right out and pinched us! I tried to recall what I had learned in college about crabs and their anatomy. But mostly I wanted the kids to learn how to make observations and hypotheses about what they saw and why the crabs behaved the way they did. We also learned the Korean word for hermit crab from some teenage girls who were collecting crabs too.
After having our share of crabby fun, we decided to walk around the edge of the cove to see what was at the end of the point. It was a sketchy walk, along some not-so-safe looking foot bridges. But, I know where to get a strong fisherman's cup of coffee, if you're willing to brave it.
The sign says STN (Second to None) Roasting Coffee.
We enjoyed ourselves, looking for shells, and then made our way back to the beach, along those same sketchy foot bridges.
Eventually the tide came in, right as it was time to catch our return bus home. Overall, we had a blast and got extremely sunburned. But we learned a lot!
When we first moved in, there was no bathroom door on the kids' bathroom. They told us that it was being replaced, since there was some damage on the previous one. We had been living in the apartment for a week before they came with the new door to install. It was very curious watching them install it. They had brought a sander with them and had to sand it down it get it to fit.
When they were finished, I noticed 2 things that were different about this door, compared to all the other doors we had. First, there were no keys. All the other doors had keys, so you could flip the bolt from the inside, or lock it with a key on the outside. The new bathroom door had no way to unlock it from the outside. Second, they had left a gap along the top of the door. I pointed it out to them, but they seemed unconcerned.
Nineteen days passed.....
We planned on going to a pool with our friends, so we told the kids to get changed into their suits. Maya grabbed her suit and headed to the bathroom. Charlie followed her down the hall, which made Maya nervous he would walk in her, so she locked herself in the bathroom. After she changed, she tried to unlock the door, but it wouldn't work. She was able to spin the lock, but the lock wouldn't disengage. She started shaking the handle, pushing and pulling, panicking that she couldn't get out.
Eric came to see what all the noise was about and she started yelling that she was stuck in the bathroom and couldn't get out. At this point, we still had not gotten any of our stuff, so we had no tools.
Eric used a butter knife to turn the screw from the outside, but it didn't disengage the lock, the same problem Maya had. I suggested we tell our friends that we weren't going to make it to the pool, and maybe they could come help us get Maya out of the bathroom instead. So, James brought his tools to see what he could do. But there wasn't much to do. Then I offered to go to the housing office and bring up one of the housing guys. Maybe he could help.
Any conversation with the housing guys involves the app Google Translate. I type something into my phone and it translates it to Korean. I show it to the housing guy, who types something into his translate app and then shows me the translation in English. It's a slow process.
I began with this:
To which he replied, "She's locked outside?"
So, I clarified:
He seemed confused why I didn't unlock the door.
Again, I tried to clarify:
Still there was confusion, and I realized that none of the public restroom signs say "restroom" or "bathroom". They all say "toilet". So I went for this:
Bingo. Now he understood. He grabbed his tool box and a cordless drill and followed me back to my apartment. He looked at the lock and realized straight away he couldn't do anything. James and Eric had managed to remove all the hardware from the door, but still couldn't get the door to unlock. There was something internal that they couldn't get to that was keeping it from unlocking. The housing guy pulled his phone out again and asked Eric if he could break the door. I was thinking, "Hey, we just got that door!" but Eric said "sure". Then the housing guy changed his mind. He typed into his phone, "can we call the fire department?" Meanwhile, James called our Global Helpdesk person. She asked to talk to the housing guy and together they decided calling a locksmith was the best route to take. So, the housing guy called a locksmith and he gave him a quote of 50,000 won and an estimate of an hour before he would arrive.
James called his wife Janny and told her to bring the picnic they had packed for the pool over to our place. She brought so much food and wine! We started drinking and I pulled out some chips and salsa, and some chopped veggies. Then James and Eric left to get some cash for the ATM to pay the locksmith. Before they left though, they slipped a Word Search puzzle through the crack over the door and the nib of a pen, so Maya wouldn't be bored. They also put on her favorite band "Imagine Dragons".
James used a phone app to order more food to be delivered to the apartment while they were out. Food delivery guys usually ride motorbikes, with their faces covered with bandanas to not inhale exhaust fumes. This guy rings our bell with only his eyes showing. The rest of his face is covered. If I hadn't known better I would have thought he was there to rob us. But we opened the door and he offered us a bag of burgers and a bottle of soda. Cheers!
Eventually the guys returned with cash and beers from the local brewery. The locksmith showed up and took 2 seconds to get the door open. Maya was free at last! The locksmith fixed the lock so it wouldn't get stuck again and we continued the party. Even a security guard showed up to watch the locksmith fix the door and hang out with the housing guy. It turned out to be a great night.
Ever since we moved here, I've noticed little things that show me just how much people and the government cares about the well-being of others. They are little courtesies that help everyone. I'll put a spotlight on ten of these courtesies in today's post.
1. Foam on your car door. These are sold in the dollar stores and many people have these on their cars, so they don't hit the car next to them in the parking garages. Or if they were to hit the next car over, it wouldn't leave a dent.
2. Large shade umbrellas at crosswalks. It is so nice to be able to wait in the shade on a hot day, for the crosswalk light to turn green. And, speaking of crosswalks, there are three other features I love.
The first is the yellow bumpy squares for blind people, to indicate the sidewalk ending or turning, or stopping.
The second is diagonal crosswalks. When an intersection has a diagonal crosswalks, you know that all street lights have to be red first, then all the crosswalks lights will be green at once.
The third is that there are separate crosswalk paths for bicycles and pedestrians. This helps avoid collisions.
This umbrella is over the median of a large road, where you cross halfway, then stop before crossing the rest of the street.
Notice that the bike crosswalk path is red with a dashed white line, while the pedestrians cross in the large white hashed area.
This corner not only has shade, but also benches!
3. Digital readouts at bus stops. Not only do most bus stops have shade and benches, but they also have a monitor that displays which buses stop there and how long you'll have to wait for each bus. All the buses must have GPS trackers, so that you know exactly how many minutes you'll have to wait and you can see if it gets slowed down by traffic or something. This has helped us when we arrive at a bus stop, so that we can see if we have time to run into a shop and buy a drink while we wait, or put more money on our T-money cards. Some monitors also show the weather and current time.
4. Designated seating areas for pregnant women on the subway. They are marked with pink labels, and when you find out you're pregnant, you get a pink card from your doctor to carry with you. That way when the subway is crowded and there are no empty seats, a pregnant woman can flash her pink card and get a seat without question. It doesn't even matter if she's not visibly showing a baby bump yet.
5. Free bug spray dispensers at all parks. Who hasn't gotten to the park, planning a nice hike, and realized they forgot bug spray?
6. Outdoor exercise equipment at all parks. There is no excuse to not be fit here. I've seen these everywhere, and they are usually near the playground, so your kids can play while you work out!
7. Simple grooves next to the steps down to the subway, so you can get your bike up and down the stairs without carrying it.
8. Call buttons at restaurants. These are amazing. Your waiter will not hover waiting for you to finish your meal. You can make a meal last hours if you want to. They will not come and refill your coffee a million times over. They will not come and check on you and interrupt your conversations with your friends. They will virtually disappear until you push the Call button, at which point they appear out of nowhere and will help you with whatever you need.
9. Panic buttons. I hope to never have to use one of these, but they are everywhere. I remember seeing them when I was in college, but not since then. These panic buttons are on lamp posts, in every stall of public restrooms, at crosswalks, everywhere. Sometimes they say SOS on them.
10. National helplines for everything including translating. We've only tried the translating service, but the lady on the other end spoke English fluently and was very kind and helpful.
This is just a sampling of all there is available as free courtesies to folks in South Korea. I think it makes everyone feel like someone is looking out for them and wishing them well. They certainly make me smile!
