Trip to the Spa

I've just discovered that there is a spa in the building where I live, and a trip to the spa was exactly what all of the teachers needed on Friday evening. So, we all went packing our bathing suits, and flip flops and feelin' ready for the hot sauna.

We weren't ready at all.

This spa, which is typical in Korea, was a beautiful haven of saunas, bathing, pools, and more saunas. Here's a trip through the spa.

Check in at the front. It's 6000 won, or about 6 dollars. You get a frumpy pink outfit, a tiny towel, a scrubber, and a key. Then you go around the corner to a room where you lock away your shoes. Then you proceed to the women's locker room. Turn another corner and you find a locker room and another desk. Give these ladies your key and they provide you with a full size locker key bracelet. Find your locker, and strip. Now you're ready!

Wearing nothing but the key bracelet, you soon get over the fact that you don't have your skivvies. Then, find your way to the beautiful sauna and spa room. Take a shower and then hit the pools. We tried each one, and they getting hotter and hotter, (and colder and colder!!) Yep, everyone is still naked and you are too. If you weren't you'd feel way out of place. There are pools that are freezing cold and other pools that have steam rising out of them.

After soaking for an hour, head to the sauna or steam room. You'll be sitting in there with some very hardcore sauna chicks, but after that, grab that scrubber mitt they gave you.

Korean spa culture includes scrubbing your skin vigorously for at least an hour. This little mitt they provide you with eventually takes off all this crap from your skin. Layers of skin continue to slough off. A kind woman sat down with me to show me how to use these tiny sinks and I stayed for the entire time she did, which was a little over an hour. Think about taking a shower for that long! Anyhow, the scrubbing feels wonderful (like finally getting that itch in the middle of your back) and your skin is amazingly smooth afterwards.

Once you've gone back to the locker, put on the crazy unflattering outfit and head to the common room. There's almost everything you can imagine in this place. More pools for your feel, saunas, salt room saunas, charcoals saunas, even a an freezer you can sit in like a sauna. This common room has yoga studio, TV, movies, ice cream, sushi and even beer, plus little cubby holes to sleep in if you're ready for a nap. On the way out I spotted someone getting a treatment of some kind with hot cups suctioned to her back. Later I learned that this is supposed to get rid of impurities in your skin.

Heading back to the main room is hard after being in this haven for nearly 3 hours. It's so relaxing! But just as I was about to step out the door into the elevator, I spotted an enourmous gym....

There's nothing even close to this place in the US, and I think that's really too bad. There's something very soothing about it. You'll be the first to hear about it when I go back...soon!