Love Motels

In Korea, most young people tend to live at home with their parents until they get married. Due to the fact that almost all Korean families live in small apartments, finding some privacy for a young couple can be difficult.

This is where the Love Motel comes in. They are really just a hotel with a parking lot, but the English words Love Motel, have worked their way into the Korean language, in much the same way that English draws influences from Latin, French and many other languages.

Anyways, there are many Love Motels in Korea. They offer the services you would expect from somewhere providing accommodation, a bedroom, bathroom and possibly TV, computer, room service, etc. But its about here where the similiarities stop in what you would expect in a Western hotel. Vending machines for condoms and sex toys, mood lighting ranging from a dimmer switch to coloured ceiling lights, free porn on the cable TV, hookers calling cards often get left near the enterance in an attempt to drum up business in much the same way as you would expect local businesses to try and advertise.

They seem to be the cheapest reasonable form of accommodation available in Korea. So they get patronised by young couples obviously, gentlemen accompanied by a lady of the night, people carrying out their sordid extra-marital affairs away from prying eyes, foreigners and generally anyone in need of a cheap place to sleep for the night.

I guess its here that I should tell you that Jiran's parents own and operate one of these establishments. Due to the Korean tradition that stipulates that a young couple would never sleep in the same bed, she is staying upstairs in her mother's room and her parents have provided me with a room in the Love Motel.