I entered down a bamboo-covered stone stairway and luckily found someone at the desk who spoke English. She said her husband's family emigrated to Georgia and she has visited them there; accordingly she speaks English with a southern accent! You can enter the spa and hang out in the various baths that are set at different temperatures for only 10,000 won (a little less than nine U.S. dollars), but I decided to go for the "gold" treatment and signed up for a sauna, scrub, massage and shampoo. My new Korean friend with the southern accent was funny when I told her that's what I wanted. She said "You'll have to take your clothes off." Well, I anticipated that when I decided to go to a bath house so I said "That's OK." Then she said, "Really, you will have to have nothing on." Now I started to feel like I was odd for being OK with this concept, but I said, "I can do that." Then she looked at me and said, "You will be NEKKED!" Cracked me up. Evidently she's had experiences where westerners have paid their money and then balked at going the full monty. I told her that since I didn't know anyone there I was prepared to be "nekked". So she took my money, gave me a locker key and two towels and showed me the layout. Since I didn't know what to do she introduced me to the sauna lady (from this point on nobody spoke any English at all) and assured me that the sauna lady would take me to the massage/scrub lady and I would be fine.
At this point I need to note that I saw more naked people on this day than I have in my entire life, with the possible exception of the day in 1984 when I went to the Turkish bath in Istanbul. As I walked to my locker what my new friend had told me was proven to be true... everyone WAS nekked and soon I would be, too. The next two hours will be presented to you in a stream of consciousness narrative as follows:
"OK, I can do this. I'm taking off all clothing and putting them in my locker. Can I take a towel with me? Oh, there's some Korean ladies walking around with their (very small) towel kind of held up in front of them so I'll do that. I was told to take a "quick shower" before the sauna so here I go. Yoiks, it's a long walk to the showers and this towel is very, very small! Well, nobody seems to be paying any attention to me.... OK, how quick should the "quick shower" be? There's soap here... is it community soap? Crap, there's no place to hang my towel and it's already wet. Oh, well, it's more for modesty than for drying off at this point.
"Well, the quick shower is over and I still have 5 minutes before I'm supposed to show up to the sauna lady. I'll jump in the hip bath - it says 33 degrees Celsius and has jets. Oooops, now people are looking at me... must be a faux pas. OK, I'll just show up to the sauna early. Sauna lady is nice, but what do I do! Oh, she wants me to sit on that wooden stool that looks like a hospital toilet. I'll sit on it just like a toilet with my hiney in the hole. Yoiks, I'm being enveloped in a giant pink satin sack and she's drawing the drawstring around my neck! And do I feel stupid, you're not supposed to sit on the hole - especially since there's a pot of boiling herbs underneath it which would surely cook my caboose if I stayed the way I was. I'll do as she says and sit at the back of the stool with my feet on either side and leaning back against the wall. Hmmm, Korean soap operas are on. That'll keep my mind off how hot it's getting in this bag....
"OMG, that pink satin chair across from me just moved!!! Oh, it's not a chair at all, it's a Korean lady emerging from her sauna-sack. The drawstring had been tied over the top of her head. Well, now that I know there's another customer in here I can watch to see what she does. For example, now I know when I want to sip some of the green tea that's on a small table next to me I just slip my arm out of the drawstring and sip away... also that the sauna lady will replenish it when it's empty. This is a good thing 'cause it's getting quite warm in the pink bag. My lady keeps sticking her hand inside the sacque and checking the temperature... it must be good because she just drew the sacque over the top of my head and closed the drawstring. Waiting.... waiting.... Gee, it's hot. What would happen if I pass out? If I spread my feet farther will it let a little fresh air in? Ahhhh...a little better. Waiting... Oy, it's really, really hot. That's a lot of sweat running down my body. Yep, it's hot..... Waiting..... Thank GOD! She's come to bring my head out of the sack and brings me cold tea. But I still have some time to cook because the pretty Korean customer across from me is still cooking....
"All right, now the sack lady takes the sack off me and I'm "nekked" again. Which is the best way to hold this towel in front of me... did I mention that the towel is very, very small? Oh, here's the scrub lady. I'll follow her but this floor is super slippery. OK, here's 6 massage tables lined up in a tiled area next to some more baths. She hoses the table down (the others are empty) and beckons me to lie down. Gaahh, that scrub mitten she's wearing feels like steel wool. It must be a loofah, but it's falling apart as she scrubs - hard - every nook and cranny I've got. Ewwww, wait a minute, that's not pieces of loofah falling off the glove... that's giant pieces of my dead skin she's rolling off my body!!!!... how embarrassing. Since Korean women come here all the time I'm assuming they don't have as much built-up dead skin to come off. This loofah lady probably thinks I haven't bathed since Christmas. I mean, we're talking GLOBS of skin. And this hurts! Ouch! [this process goes on for about 45 minutes and my skin keeps coming off in globs the entire time].
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| Obviously, I didn't take photos inside the spa... I snagged this off the internet |
Forty-five minutes later... "Great, the scrubbing is over, now for the massage. Hey, easy there! This woman is strong. It's not quite Thai massage but there's a lot of stretching involved. Ouch! OK... my eyes have been closed for over an hour, but I think this woman is walking on my butt... should I look? Well, I can see her (and, unfortunately, me) reflected on the tile wall, and yes, she is walking on my butt. And it hurts. This really, really, hurts... I wonder if I can come back tomorrow..... OK, that's over. Hey, people have joined me. There's a 14 year old girl getting the same treatment I am on the table next to me and someone who's probably her mother next to her. Mmmmmm, now she's putting crushed cucumber all over my face and washing my hair. [10 minutes later] It's over? OK, I'll go and hang out in the 40 degrees Celsius pool for awhile. Then I'll have to walk back through that big room to get to my locker and clothing."
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| Internet photo - the spa patrons I saw were grandmas, housewives, and kids, not glamorous models |
Despite feeling way awkward and not too sure I was following protocol, I'm really glad I visited the Korean bathhouse. It was filled with housewives, babies, glamor girls - and a middle aged Caucasian lady from DeLand, Florida.
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