busan

“Do you have a bathroom?” I asked breathlessly.
“Eh?” A woman and two men sat at a table in the restaurant, presumably waiting for customers to start their day.
I had rushed in when the conbini across the street turned out to not have a loo, but now realised I had no idea how to ask to use theirs in Korean.
“Bath-room,” I crossed my legs in pantomime.
“Bark-roo?” One of the men repeated questioningly.
The woman smirked and pointed to the corner of the room.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!”
I hurried in and closed the door on the sound of the man giggling.
I silently berated myself for not having learnt the simple, and obviously essential, phrase before our trip.
As relief flooded (out of) me, I looked up to find the toilet doubled as a storage space, with paper towels, cleaning supplies… and a pile of pots and pans staring back from a shelf above me.
“Hygienic,” I thought to myself.
The night before I’d been introduced to the South Korean custom of not flushing toilet paper, but leaving it to mellow in a (usually overflowing) bin instead. Also very hygienic.
No time to judge though – I yanked up my drawers, shoved my hands under the faucet and ran out of the restaurant yelling “kamsahamnida!” over my shoulder.
We couldn’t miss another bus.

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