The Sauna

One night last weekend a few of us from work were on our way out to have a few drinks. We were all dragging a bit because it had been a long day, so we were looking forward to relaxing. We were about half way there when Kim Hye Jeong and Kwon Hye Jung sprung their idea on us: Let's go to a jjimjilbang (luxury sauna)!

I have seen them everywhere, and I know they a regular part of the Korean culture. People of all ages go. I have read about them on the internet and in my LonelyPlanet travel guide. They sound great: relaxing and cheap. There's only one tiny detail that has steered me clear of them since being here: nakedness! Ah! The rules are simple: you pay at the front desk where they hand you a pair of pj looking clothes, go up to either the men or women's locker room, put ALL your belongings in a locker, and shower in a huge public shower room covered with mirrors (no stalls or anything). There are also hot tubs in the shower room that many people lounge in. After your finished showering and hot tubbing, you put your provided clothes on and go up to the sauna which is co-ed. After sitting in the saunas for a while, you do the whole showering thing again.

If you're a man reading this, you may not see any problem in this. Mitch didn't feel nearly as awkward about it as I did. Locker room rituals are much different for men than for women (atleast in the tiny town I grew up in). Sure, we changed clothes in front of each other, but walking around naked, showering, and sitting in a hot tub together naked was not really something that we did in a locker room. I don't know if you can quite imagine the feelings I had upon hearing that little suggestion the Hye Jeongs' sprung on us. On one hand I wanted to fake appendicitis and dash home. On the bigger hand, everyone else was very excited about the idea, and there was no way I was going to be the one to back out. Before I crossed that big sea, many people asked me if I was scared. No! I wasn't scared. I was excited (I still am excited). When someone asked my mom if I was scared about moving so far away from home, she simply said "no". When they asked her why, she simply said "because she's my daughter". It's true. I have her blood, and so I knew that no matter how scattered and spun my feelings were on our walk to the jjimjilbang, I was going to soon be walking around naked with lots of other Korean women.

It happened exactly how I expected, exactly what I read about. There were people of all ages: Small children were running around, and grandmothers were sitting around scrubbing each other's backs. Hye Jeong, Hye Jung, and I took our time in bathing. We even sat in the hot tub for a while. And after we were there, I don't' know if my nerves went numb or if they actually were calmed by all the steam, but I did feel better. As with many things, thinking about it was the hardest part. I didn't even care when I heard a few people talking about me. I'll say it again that there aren't many foreigners here, so we are often a spectical everywhere we go. All in all, the experience was relaxing. I'm not sure that I'll go again on my own will, but Mitch has already mentioned several times that he'd like to go back.