Friday was our first outing to the neighborhood bath house or Jimjilbang. Though Michael has had the jimjilbang experience before me, Kate, and Chad were newbies. After the initial confusion around paying for the amenities we wanted to enjoy, we headed off to the boys rooms and girls rooms respectively. Into the bath house we went. Naked Korean folks everywhere, just chillin'. If it had not been for my lessons from Clara on how to be naked and okay with it, I don't know that I could've made it so comfortably. So thank you Clara the Masala hot tub. In the bath house there were many baths at different temperatures and for all I know different kinds of water. There was a huge cold water (freezing cold) bath that made for a freshing contrast between the hot tubs. My circulation system is still reeling. The bath house turned out to be relaxing with minimal staring.
It was really interesting to see the women washing each other and to a greater extent, exfoliating each other in the showers with scrubbies. I mean really getting down and getting all that dead skin off.
The ultimately crowning point of my first jimjilbang visit was the "massage" I got. Dying for a massage, I decided I would take anything. So Kate and I stood naked with just our little teeny tiny towel to use for cover and proceeded to "talk" with the front desk about how much a massage is and what is included. After a long time of pointing and writing different numbers down on paper I decided I would just go and whatever it included, I would experience it. I nervously followed an Ajooma back to the bath house massage area. I was still naked and she was in her underpants. She waved for me to get on the table. Here's how it went down:
1. I was draped with many wet towels and then given blissful compressions up and down my body (sort of like Shiatsu, very nice). All of this was done while hot water sprayed onto me.
2. Somehow she managed to stand up on the slippery table and walk on my feet
3. I was scrubbed down head to toe with some sort of scrubby scrub mixture. She made sure any dead skin cells were surely removed. The mixture smelled (and tasted)very sweet. I imagine it was a mix of sugar and other things.
4. My back and legs were pounded on intensely with what is known as cupping and slapping. She did this so hard I coughed for a while during it. But I have no doubt in my mind she cleared out my lungs for the better.
5. Flip
6. Experience full frontal naked Mel massage. Ah!!!! This included frontal exfoliation. Hmmm....? This was not a place to be bashful!
7. Slap...ew what is that on my face. Several times different goos were put on my face and wiped off, at one point she even grated fresh cucumber and placed it all over my face. Well done.
8. This is all done with copious amounts of water being sloshed over me at different intervals. On one level you feel pampered and on another level...well...
I have never experienced anything like that in my life. Would I recommend it? I think so. But I will also be on the lookout for a more, um, more familiar.
After that we headed to meet the boys in the actual jimjilbang. This is the co-ed area where everyone sits and eats hard boiled eggs and watches tv. Here there were also many different rooms with different features.
There were several saunas with various temperature and smells. One was called the amethyst room adn has a ceiling full or crystals. Beautiful! They also had two VERY HOT cave rooms, an oxygen room, adn an ice room. When I peeked into the ice room there was a man lying in the middle just surrounded by ice and snow!
Soon it was time to go home. I was pooped out!!!
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