The wet room
Some Korean accommodation has a wet-room bathroom: the shower shares a tiled floor and drain with the toilet and basin, with no separate tray or cubicle. Water may spread across the floor while you shower. Other rooms have an enclosed shower, so check photographs of your particular room. Living with one is straightforward once you expect it:
- Wear the slippers. Almost every Korean bathroom has a pair of plastic sandals inside the door, because you will be walking on a wet floor, and because a Korean home is shoes-off everywhere else, so the bathroom is the one place footwear is worn indoors. Put them on inside the bathroom and leave them there when you come out.
- Move the paper. A roll on an open holder gets soaked. Many rooms mount it inside a lidded plastic box for exactly this reason; if yours does not, take the roll out before you shower.
- Take your towel with you or leave it outside, for the same reason.
- Use the extractor fan or follow the host’s ventilation instructions. The floor may remain wet after showering.
- Watch your footing. The floor is tiled, it slopes to the drain, and it is slippery when soapy.
- Tell the host if a drain smells or water is not draining properly.
A newer hotel gives you an enclosed shower or a bath and often a dry floor; that is now normal at the upper end and common in new-build guesthouses. What you cannot do is predict it from the price — look at the photographs of the specific room.
Toilet paper: bin or bowl
This is the question every visitor asks, and the answer changed, which is why the advice online contradicts itself. Older sewerage and narrow plumbing made blockages common, so for decades the norm was a bin beside every toilet. Then the rule changed for public facilities. The Enforcement Decree of the Public Toilets Act (공중화장실 등에 관한 법률 시행령) now says plainly that no bin may stand inside a toilet cubicle, with two exceptions — cubicles fitted for disabled, elderly or pregnant users, and cubicles with a baby-changing table. A separate clause requires a sanitary-product bin in every women's cubicle, which is a different thing and not for paper. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (행정안전부) announced it with the instruction in as many words: the bin is going, put used paper in the bowl. It took effect 1 January 2018.
| Where | What to do |
|---|---|
| Station, airport, department store, park — any public toilet | Flush toilet paper unless a specific sign says otherwise. |
| Modern hotel, new café, new office building | Flush toilet paper unless the building’s sign says otherwise. |
| Older motel, small restaurant, market, mountain hut, older guesthouse | Follow the sign about toilet-paper disposal. Ask the host if it is unclear. |
| Anywhere with a multilingual sign on the wall | Follow the building’s disposal instructions. |
The rule reaches public toilets; a private business's own toilet was never bound by it and may still ask you to bin the paper. Korean toilets frequently carry a four-language sign with the local instruction, and it is worth two seconds of reading. Never flush a wet wipe, a sanitary product or a nappy anywhere in Korea, bin or no bin.
Squat toilets
They still exist. The squat pan (화변기) set into the floor was for a long time the standard, and the public-toilet facility standard still allows a mix of squat and Western pans as the site requires. You will meet them in older commercial buildings, some subway stations, older parks and rural rest stops. In a multi-cubicle toilet there is normally at least one Western pan, and the cubicle door usually carries a pictogram saying which is which. In accommodation you will very rarely meet one.
The bidet seat (비데)
A heated washing seat is standard in Korean hotels, common in flats, and increasingly common in public toilets, and some controls are labelled only in Korean. The examples below come from Cuckoo's own manual illustrate common labels; timings, levels and behaviour vary by model:
| Button | What it generally does |
|---|---|
| 세정 | This starts the rear-wash function. |
| 비데 | This starts the front-wash function. |
| 건조 | This starts the warm-air dryer. |
| 정지 | This stops the current function. |
| 수압 | This adjusts the water pressure. |
| 온수온도 | This adjusts the wash-water temperature. |
| 변좌온도 | This adjusts the seat temperature. |
| 노즐이동 | This moves the spray nozzle forward or back. |
| 좌욕 | This selects a gentle warm-water mode; check the manual before use. |
| 어린이 | This selects a child mode; check its instructions and supervise the child. |
| 살균 / 노즐세척 | This runs a cleaning function; follow the model’s manual. |
Check the controls before use. Many bidet seats have an occupancy sensor, but do not rely on every model behaving identically. Press 정지 to stop a wash. If the controls do not respond, ask the host rather than adjusting plumbing or electrical connections.
Keep the heated seat at a comfortable low setting and follow the manufacturer’s warning about prolonged contact. Ask for help choosing a suitable setting for a child or anyone who has difficulty sensing heat.
Report problems to the property
Ask the host or reception to address inadequate lighting, slippery surfaces, poor drainage or cleanliness problems. Do not adjust electrical connections or dismantle the bathroom equipment yourself.
