A while ago I found a link online that wrote about the "5 Weirdest Things In Korea", and one of them was Mr. Toilet House in Suwon. At first I wondered how I managed to live in Suwon for a full year without noticing the world's largest toilet-shaped house, but it had actually opened a few months after we moved back to Canada. I couldn't find any directions online, so we decided to drop into Suwon's tourist information building and ask for directions to the big toilet with a straight face.
We went to Suwon on Wednesday- we actually have public holidays off for the first time in three teaching contracts! Wednesday was Children's Day in Korea. We celebrated by taking the world's flimsiest stairs to a rooftop bar on Tuesday night and watching tranny prostitutes from a safe distance. We were beat so we didn't stay out too late, so we got to Suwon at a decent time on Wednesday. When we got off the bus in Suwon we were at a castle we'd never seen before a little north of Paldalmun and there was a ceremony going on with some traditionally dressed fellows.
Behind the ceremony and to the left a little we noticed this giant golden statue on the hill, so we hiked up to take some pictures. It was at a Buddhist temple where lots of lanterns were hung for Buddha's Birthday on May 21.
A view of Suwon from the temple.We went down the hill and walked to the One Point store at Paldalmun market, my *favorite* place to shop in Korea and maybe the world, and then went to Suwon Station to meet Shanda and get directions from Tourist Information. It's not a good sign when you tell someone at Tourist Info where you want to go and they respond with "Uhhh... no going there". What!
The lady looked over some websites for us and found that Mr. Toilet House is undergoing renovations and was closed. Despite this I decided (and to a much lesser extent, Mel and Shanda decided) that we'd already come all the way to Suwon and seeing a toilet house was almost as exciting as going in a toilet house, so we got in a taxi anyway. Tourist Info wrote "Hae Woo Jae" on a piece of paper for us, and although the driver and his dispatch had no idea where we were going (and my description: "big BIG hwa jong shil" -big bathroom- didn't help), his GPS eventually found it and we arrived after about 10 minutes for only 6,500 won. We were in the middle of nowhere and this is what we saw:
There was a fence all around the toilet house, so it really just looked like a round white house with a lot of windows. It was a little hard to get perspective. It was fenced off during renovations... of course... it makes so much sense now. "No going there".
So here's what it looked like from above, according to Google Image Search, but I really don't think this picture is 100% real. There is a small farm directly behind the house and a freeway behind that. And a huge ditch in front of the house. Korea is awesome at Photoshop.
Our taxi driver was awesome. He tried to speak English to us and this is very rare for a taxi driver in Korea. He tried really hard to get us to the house, waited for us while we giggled and ran around the fence looking for a way to get closer, and translated a sign that hung at the entrance. The sign said that the house was built by a former Mayor of Suwon and if you'd like to visit you should call the tourist information line before you travel there to make sure it's open. Yep.
Back at Suwon Station now, and unanimously very happy that we'd made the trek to the toilet house, it was time to drink. It was our special day off. Shanda's bamboo bar was closed so we decided to be our classy selves and we drank wine-ades on a scenic bench in front of Tourist Information.
We barbecued some meat and took a bus home. And the best part was knowing that we only had two more days until the weekend. Happy Children's Day!
No comments:
Post a Comment