Yesterday was Bojan’s last day with us in Korea. He stayed for a week in our dorm room after being on an exchange in Japan for two weeks and came by on his way home to Holland. We decided we’d go have a relaxing day at the spa. Myself, my roommate Yu-Tien and Bojan, and another friend in the house Mike.
We walked to the subway station and road down to the part of town where we heard there was a good spa.
When we arrived we went in and they gave us a pair of shorts and a shirt. We went to the men’s locker room and… well, nearly every single man in there is in the nude. I’ve never been in a bath house before so I didn’t know what to expect, but I figured that people would be at least wearing some form of shorts or something, but no.
We were a little shy I guess and were wandering around trying to figure out what we’re supposed to do and where everything is. There are several floors in the bath house with different things on each floor. After the four of us wandered around aimlessly in our shorts and shirts we finally came to the realization of what we had to do. At this point, Bojan said “When in Rome.” So we stripped down to nothing.
You don’t even walk around with a towel on. We went to the shower area, then sat in a hot tub that was about 104 degrees. We then went to another tub and sat in that one for a little while. We then went into the sauna, it was extremely hot. Then they had these different baths, one was greenish color and it was called “energy”. Another was a really hot tub, it was at about 110 degrees. I sat it in for about 30 seconds. We showered again then went back to the locker room, threw on our shorts and shirts and went up to the mixed floor. There they have a big room where people lie down on the hard floor, there’s also an ice room which is like a giant refrigerator. We went to the massage room and got a one hour massage. They lay towels on top of you and work your body with their elbows. It was great. We then went to another floor where they had a room full of computers, playstations etc… we played a little starcraft. They also had a cinema playing Hellboy, and of course a room for karaoke.
We went back to the locker, stripped down and went in a couple tubs again, sauna, then did a body scrub. We left after spending probably six hours or so in the bath house. I think we all looked about four years younger.
Left to Right: Yu-Tien, Mike, Bojan, Me
We then took the subway back to Sinchon station near the U and stopped by a place for dinner. We ate a lot of food, duck, octopus, pork ribs, kim chi, fish, some soup with clam… all kinds of stuff.
After that we went back to the dorm room and Bojan packed, we got ready to go to a club for a girls birthday party. The club was great, it was nice. It was a techno trance club and the DJ’s were incredible. The club was not so different from what you’d see in a nice place in the states, but the DJ’s really made the place, I haven’t heard DJ’s that good from the places I’ve been in Seattle, Portland and Vegas. We left a little after 4am I believe and the place was still hopping. We took a cab back to the dorm and went to sleep. (I think Bojan’s camera has pictures on it from the club, so when he gets them up online I’ll post them).
In the end, after spending a chunk of the day in the nude, I think we all felt a little closer.
It’s going to be weird now only having one roommate.
For the past week this is what the bed next to me has looked like.
