Our Bodies Thirst For Water

I borrowed this title from a book which I haven't read, though the title is common sense and somewhat ignored.

Tap water is questionable in the states in places. In Korea, it's almost always the case. The Korean's don't drink the tap water here. All of them boil it for tea or soup to make it safe, but all the drinking water they retrieve from mountains. I don't know if they are springs or wells but it is the cleanest thing I can drink- with certainty- by getting it from a natural source. Something I don't know when drinking bottled water.

All Korean mountains have water spigots like this at Soyosan, where I get my water. It's completely free. All you'll is bottles and a cart to pull or strong arms. I use a combination of both to bring home a weeks worth of water in different bottles besides the 5 gallon carboy below.

I find some benefits:

The taste too is great. There is a real difference after drinking the water from the plastic bottles sold in the stores.

The cost is good overall. It costs me 3000 won a week  in transport to get water which would cost me 7,000 a week. That saves me 40,000 a month. Its one of the few things I do for my health that doesn't cost me more.

I also get to go to the mountain for a half an hour looking at the trees and sometimes linguring for longer with a book.

The time before last I went with a Korean friend. He told me that the men and women waiting for water joked that my wife made me get water. He told them that I wanted it myself. That didn't find this funny but quizzical by the expressions on their faces.

However, this jokes seems to have been repeated the time last with a different group of Koreans waiting.  Even in my limited Korean knowledge hearing the word for wife being said and American and then the general laughter following.

I even laugh at my oddness here.

It just is.