It's getting pretty chilly here these days. This morning it hovered around freezing point, making the walk to school and subway quite undelightful. I took out the other blanket that my grandmother lent me, and slept under a total of three last night. It gets pretty cool in my room. It would be better if I slept on the floor - the "ondol" (under the floor) heating system really keeps you toasty - but I don't think I have enough floor space to lie down on!
The bathroom in the house is also quite cold - in the mornings I can see my breath - so at night I usually run the hot water for a while in order to make bathing bearable. As you've probably heard or guessed or know, bathrooms here are different - but they're not what I expected, nevertheless, and I was prepared for the crouch toilets. In fact, only at school do they have traditional (?)crouch toilets; in my workplace and house, it's all about the porcelain throne, baby.
But that's pretty much where the similarities to western bathrooms end. I mentioned before that the washing machine is in the bathroom, which makes sense, of course. What's unexpected is the shower -- rather than an enclosed tub or closet, the entire bathroom is the "shower," with a drain somewhere in the floor. There isn't a showerhead per se in the bathroom, but a flexible shower accessory (I can feel my grasp of English slipping again), which you can hang on a grip on the wall, or just prop it up on the faucet (about hip level for me) and crouch under it.

Hm. I meant to make this funny but now it's getting rather tiresome. I think I'll shuffle off now. I did manage to make it to the gym last night, and was stretching after my run when the editor-in-chief walked in. He is apparently one of the few people who uses the gym. I asked him why, and he said, "Well, you know Korean people. They don't want to disturb anyone using the machine, and there's only three [a treadmill, step machine and bicycle], so people just don't use it."
So, hey, practically my own private health club! Cool.