At the Jimjilbong (the korean bath house)

**Warning this blog post may include funny stories about being naked. If that makes you uncomfortable please don’t read! LOL but I have to tell you its super funny!**

Last week I had the experience of a lifetime. I went to my first Jimjilbong, which is a Korean bath house. This all started at Friday night dinner when we started talking about going to the bath house. I was a little leery about going because well, you have to get naked for pretty much the whole time.  But ce’est la vie! I’m in Korean and off we went.

Rita, Cheryl, Maryann, Peter and I went to Vesta spa, pretty close to my house. The building is very big and there were a few different floors to go to. The first floor was check in and shoe lockers, 2^nd was the ladies floor, 3^rd was co-ed floor with different sauna rooms, 4^th was the men’s floor, and 5^th floor was co-ed roof top patio and hangout rooms.

We started out by changing into our silly pajama, which looked like nurse scrubs, and heading to the roof top patio for a beer to loosen us up. The roof top was amazing! You could see all of Heaundae beach at night with the lights on, Gwanalie Beach and the bridge. Quite frankly it was worth it just for the beautiful view. I still can’t get over that I live here.  When we were done with our beers we went down to lounge in the hot tubs.

 

So when you get to the lady only floor you go to a locker room, it reminded me of a high school gym locker room. There you get naked! It took me about 5 minutes of feeling uncomfortable then I let that all go and embrace the experience.  As American’s were actually quite prudish in the way we feel about our naked bodies. Which is surprising because you have Miley Cyrus half naked thrusting plastic fingers in her va-jay jay and twerking it all over stage. But, most people feel very uncomfortable about nudity and I do have to admit that it was a bit scary at first. But then you see the rest of the ladies… totally naked and guess what, no one cares, no one is looking at you and everyone is just there to relax and enjoy the experience.

So,  You walk through the doors and voila! You are in a big room with 5 different tubs. To your left there was an area with lots of mirrors and seats where Korean women were sitting down, many spread eagle, cleaning themselves, grooming or pretty much anything else you wanted to do. The whole point is to pamper yourself, clean yourself, and groom yourself—totally normal. Well, I skipped that area. I headed straight for the hot tubs. There were a few to choose from all with different temperatures. The first one was warm, then super hot, then normal hot tub hot lined with cedar wood for the smell, then cold, then warm with seats and jets and a cold tub with high powered jets. There is even a hot tub outside on a balcony that is shielded so no one can see but you get the naked, outside in a hot tub feel. You kind of just tub hop. You go from hot to cold then warm. I’m sure there is a way you should do it that’s best for circulation or something but I don’t know these things. This was awesome. I mean hot tubs are nice… but a hot tub naked is even better. You don’t have your swim suit in the way, you feel free, and relaxed. It was just, honestly, better naked.

Then the real fun began. I decided to get exfoliated. You tell the old ladies hey, I want a scrub down and then you enter an area of the spa with plastic covered beds. You lay on the bed and the lady grids up some fresh cucumber and puts it on your face… all while smacking your skin a little. Then she starts the scrub down, first you lay on your back and she does your front side… and I mean your whole front side.. She even grabbed my leg and made me go spread eagle so she could really get in there. It was so awkward and I was trying my hardest not to laugh. Then the lady starts smacking the table and that means to roll over, on your side. Mind you, Your naked, the table is lined with plastic and your slightly slimy from soap… its very slippery and you feel like a slippery seal, I was trying not to slip off the bed. This continues on all your sides… a very intense scrubbing of your skin.. and let me tell you, my butt crack has never been so clean before! I mean who exfoliates that anyway. When it’s all done you know because the old lady throws a bucket of water on you and tells you to get off the bed. I was a little happy that the exfoliation was done because it was a good 30 minutes of scrubbing and it felt like my skin was being completely scratched off. My skin has never been so smooth.

The last thing I did was the high powered waterfall area. You go into a tub and there are 4 high powered jets to stand under. When I say high powered.. I mean high powered but you let it massage your muscles in your back, butt, and calves. It felt really good. I hold all my tension in my right shoulder area so I just let the water try to work that out.

We were all done bathing so we put our cute pajamas back on and headed to the sauna area. There were a lot of different saunas to choose from too. The typical one we are used to, a hot stone room, its really hot and you can lay on the stones and place them on your body too, a warm room for meditation, and a cold room. Then I got a kiwi juice and sat on the balcony to enjoy the view some more. We decided at 2:30 AM it was time to go home (the spa is open 24 hours) and I spelt like a baby! If you ever get the chance to go to a bath house… do it! It was such a funny, interesting, memorable experience.