alwaysKorea

There still remain an old style Korean traditional houses, Hanoks. They are famous for beautiful shape, nature-friendly scenery surrounding them. They consist of various materials like tree pillars, roof tiles, beams, folding screen, eaves, and so on. It needs to be designed very scientifically and technically to build Hanok. There are many distictive factors Hanoks have, and one of them is 'Ondol', Korean floor heating system. Since it can keep the house warm for a long time, Ondol is the predominant heating system in all Korean houses, even many apartments. Because of the shortage of land and a rapid speed of mordernization, however, Hanok is no longer a representative style of house. However, many Koreans still love and cherish Hanok. So, many people including foreign tourists visit Hanok villages to stay for some days or Hanok-style cafes to drink coffee. 

A number of Koreans are familiar with a cute-style application, "Dang-geun market"(meaning "carrot market"). The app enables people to find used items sold by nearby neighbors. So, people using the app can easily buy and sell second-hand products or service. Sometimes, someone luckily get the item for free. Since there are many kinds of categories of items, it's easy to find the item. Thesedays, this application has included many functions like online pay, online local communities, advertisements. For those who take care of children must use this app to save money when buying tons of toys.    

The birth rate has been declined at a rapid speed. There are so many reasons to explain this phenomenon; The increase in women's entering the workforce, the preference or necessity of having a dual income, late marriages, rocketing prices including house, the tendency of nuclear families, and so on. Just before a few decades ago, many houses raised many babies. Children had many brothers and sisters. Mostly, mother stayed at home to take care of her babies. Thesedays, people tend to marry at a later ages, and have only one or two child(or not). It's not surprising to see DINK(which is abbreviated for 'Double Income No Kid) at all in Korea. In order to prevent the possibility of demographic clifff, there are many policies to help parenting and financial supports such as vouchers and child benefit by govenment and public agencies. One thing I want to emphasize is the the unchangeable fact that parenting needs much dedication and patience.

The number of cashierless stores is rapidly growing. It is easy and convenient to order a coffee to the machine and pay the price at the kiosk in convenient stores. Typical examples of checkout-free store are cafe, snack bar, sandwich shop, products about pet, laundry, noraebang or Karaoke, study room. There are many advantages to use machine instead of manpower. Not only does It provide all-the-same service with no break, but also saves expenses. As a result, it leads to competitive price. Thanks to the develoved technology, many people predict the wave of machine will continue to spread in many other stores.

  New words, 'Eoljukah' or 'Ah-Ah' have finally emerged. Those new words are for hardcore iced americano dinkers. Drinking cold Americano even in crazily chilly weather outside is somewhat common in Korea. Many Koreans, especially young poeple, love to drink iced coffee outside. It's not that much strange to see many people drink coffee while walkin' the road. Many reasons for this are as follows; following faster pace in life, convenient to drink, easy access to coffee shop, cheap price, being a pretty chill person, and so on. I also order a cup of coffee full of ice this morning. It's essential for me to get much energy when taking care of two babies. 

  In Korea, multi-use shopping bags are always welcomed for many people for many reasons. In other words, plastic or single-use shopping bags are no longer sold in many shops so that people are encouraged to buy reusable and durable shopping bags. These types of favorable bags are mostly strong, big, handy enough to handle different size and weight of products. As a result, many people are familiar to using these eco-friendly shopping bags that are highly utilized in many ways. Also, the price of them are reasonably cheaper than plastic bags so that people can easily buy at the checkout counter. That's why there are many eco-friendly bags are stored in each house in Korea.