I went to a Korean bathhouse on Saturday with Crystal, a friend of a friend who also just moved to Seoul (small world, ESL!). We talked about the bathhouse the first time we met, and agreed that while it took some convincing the first time we'd each gone (in the Korean cities we'd previously lived in), it was a relaxing cultural experience worth repeating. Originally we'd thought that since people point and stare at us when we're out and about and fully clothed, the scrutiny would certainly be worse in the bathhouse. It's not, though, and fortunately we each had expat friends who finally got us to try it.
Even if you're not stared at, it's still nice to go with a buddy - especially when trying out a new place. The routine seems to be a bit different in each bathhouse, and though the Korean ajumas (literally "married woman," but used among expats to refer to grandmotherly Koreans) are quick to show you how they do things (hot bath, cold bath, really hot bath, cold bath, really, really hot bath . . . you get the idea), it's good not to be the only one looking lost until they start pointing you in the right direction.
On Saturday we started by donning the baggy shorts and T-shirt that were provided, then headed to the four saunas, each made of a different material and with temperatures ranging from hot to unbearably hot. There are straw mats and wooden pillows in all of them (trust me, that's more comfortable than it sounds); after lying on the floor for a while, chatting and working up a good sweat, we headed back to the gender-segregated bath part of the place. The only rule there is that you shower first; after that we did our own series of hot-cold-hot-cold, plus another sauna, and ended with a scrub session using these really scratchy Korean bath mitts.
I was amused at the benefits promised in the brochures we picked up at the front desk. Among them: the amethyst "furnace" (sauna) is supposed to emit "life-friendly energy oscillation wave and far-infrared rays so that it urinates the waste material in body," and the charcoal furnace to "detoxify harmful order or toxic material for human body by absorbing and sucking in them." I shouldn't laugh at the English; I'm sure those aren't easy concepts to translate, and it's nice that they make the effort. I rather doubt that I had any toxic materials sucked out (or sucked in), but I did leave feeling relaxed and very, very clean.
5 comments:
Heather, I love the armchair traveling I am doing through your blog! Keep posting, please!
Aunt M
Heather is awesome.
See you in Wuhan.
xo
Pete
From foot massages to steam cleaning gotta luv the eastern ways. Hope I C ya soon.
I love the blog!! Makes me want to buy a plan ticket right now and go on my next adventure!! I look forward to your stories!
Reminds me of my first time in a Russian banya (which was actually in Ukraine, but it was pretty Russian). I went with a journo friend who had been assigned to write about the banyas for the Kyiv Post, and after checking out the high-end ones, he invited me to join him at the proletarian one (Tsentralnaya, right off Maydan, if anybody out there's keeping score). The place was pretty crowded, but just by walking in we lowered the average age by a good couple of decades. All the guys who have been going there for years have an intricate routine worked out about which level of the steam room they sit on when, and who smacks which part of their body with the birch branches after x amount of time in the cold pool and all that, and we were just kind of wandering in and out. They seemed torn between irritation at us messing up their system, and satisfaction that a couple of young English-speakers had dropped in.
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