Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Drew345]

I like to travel around Korea but I've found that most motels don't have sheets on the bed. Usually there is a firm blanket on the mattress, then the person, then a fluffier blanket over the top, but no sheets. I can't help but think that these blankets are rarely washed; maybe once a month? I mean, how often can you wash a blanket? So the whole idea of sleeping in a Korean motel has become a disgusting thought to me. Sleeping on one blanket and under another blanket that has been shared by 10 or 20 Koreans since the last washing gives me the creeps.
Is the Korean style bedding (thick blanket on bottom and fluffy blanket on top) washable at all?
Is it the kind of stuff that is probably washed between every guest at a motel?
What level of hotel would it take to actually find sheets on the bed? I think I saw some once in a 150,000 hotel.

I guess I could take my own sheets, but that doesn't change the fact that the blankets have been in direct contact with quite a few bodies.

Thanks for any ideas on this subject. I would love to travel more; but, like I said, beds without sheets seem really disgusting to me.

Thanks,

[Mr. Pink]

Get out your CSI black light and check for "tracks". That will be the cherry on top of your disgusting thoughts.

[Gibberish]

The obvious solution is to never, ever stay in a Korean hotel. Even the ones that aren't love hotels are still love hotels.

[Drew345]

I guess I was hoping for someone to say, "Don't worry, those blankets may not look washable, but they get washed and dried everyday."
Doesn't seem that I'm going to hear that.

But seriously, even in Korean homes they seem to use this think blanket below and fluffy blanket above with no sheets. Is bedding just not washed in Korea? I guess in home it is just your own germs, but still...

[andrewchon]

With the thick blankets they un-do the stitching and take off the cover. The cover is washed often. The cotton innards are fluffed each year or replaced.

[blackjack]

I take a sleeping bag with me, with two people, simply take two and unzip

[daeguowl]

Get a double sheet and sew it up into a sleeping bag. Just sleep in that and it'll keep you from being contaminated...

[storysinger81]

People frequently wash their home bedding. I see it drying outside and on rooftops all the time.

[Fishead soup]

The one consolation is Koreans don't have pre-maritual sex so don't worry. Koreans are also respectable and clean people.

[nobbyken]

You can get yourself a 'sheet sleeping bag', which you go inside, under the duvet. Commonly used in hostels in the UK, where they wash this after every guest. Seen them in Thailand, but not Korea.
Stayed in a pension near Pyongchang recently, lovely 4-poster with in a 2-room mini apt., cost us 60ooo per night as it was of season. The owner even threw in free drip coffee and toast for breakfast.

[b-class rambler]

I don't know the definitive answer to the OP's question, if indeed it is a genuine question, not just a rhetorical one.

But this would be my 2 won's worth on the subject. I've stayed at lots and lots of motels in Korea over the last 10+ years. I've seen some where the standard of cleaning was unpleasantly bad, but mostly they've been fine for the price on the things that mattered as far as I was concerned. I'm not any kind of fan of the bar of soap that everyone else has used and I give the bathroom slippers that everyone else's sweaty feet have been in a wide berth too.

So I do have probably the same kind of intolerance towards those kinds of things as most other westerners, I'd guess. But, a handful of particularly bad places where EVERYTHING was dirty aside, I've never been overly concerned about the beds. For one, I know I've seen in some places when leaving in the morning how other vacated rooms had their doors open and the beds inside had been stripped down to the mattress by the cleaning lady. And also, if the standard of bed cleanliless was as bad as being suggested here I'm sure that over the last 10 years or so I'd have had the bites from the nasty little creatures in those beds to tell me how bad it was and would have noticed in other ways too. That just hasn't happened.


Having said all that, when we moved last year the removal company threw in for free a professional cleaner who, as part of the deal, machine cleaned our mattress. After he'd finished he expressed surprise that the bag attached to the machine had very little of the crap the device usually sucks out of mattresses and which he amazes most people he visits by showing them what they've been sleeping on. He said ours was one of the cleanest mattresses he'd ever come across. We vacuum it every time the sheets are changed, so that might be why. His surprise would suggest to me that not many people make much effort to clean their mattresses here and there isn't much awareness of any need to. I expect that'd be the same in motels too, but, to be fair, it's certainly not an ignorance remotely unique to Korea.

[orosee]

I had to stay in a love motel once for a few days while we were looking for an apartment. The sheets looked clean but after walking on the carpet (in my socks) for a while and lying on my bed afterwards, I found the foot end covered with what was obviously pubic hair (black, short and curly - or it was from an ajumma with a severe scalp problem), lots of it.

That caused all sorts of unpleasant feelings

[lhchea]

[NightSky]

if you have doubts about cleanliness, always ask to see the room first, before you pay. sometimes they will make a face but they can't refuse, and if they do, you can walk out. I've never stayed in a motel that had a carpet on the floor--that must be very old style. most of the nicer/newer ones have that marble look which is easy to spot dirt/hair on or that yellow flooring stuff which is also easy to tell if it's clean.

[flakfizer]