Korean saunas are the best thing ever

21.08.2012

It's Dave's second last day of work and it's raining a lot today, so I decided to go to the sauna. Even though I got very detailed instructions, I still couldn't find it very well.

Being the brilliant genius that I am, I remembered I had my korean-english dictionary app on my ipod. I punched in sauna and then matched the characters that came up with what was on a sign on this one building.

I walked in and there it was in English "Best Sauna". I made it! It's the small victories in life that make it all worthwhile. Haha.

"Sauna!" I blurt out at the lady at the counter

"Korean" I think she was asking for money, so I gave her 10,000. She gave me back 4,000! 6,000 = $6

SIX DOLLARS for an afternoon at the sauna. Amazing. She handed me a towel and says

"Second floor! Second floor!"

"OK good" thumbs up.

So I get up there and it's absolutely beautiful! Sparkling raw gemstones are embedded into the walls and inside the sauna everything is pure marble. Of course I don't have pictures, but imagine a giant room full of art deco stained glass on the ceiling and naked asian ladies of all ages lolling about, sitting on the edges of pools, scrubbing themselves in the shower, getting intense massages and splashing around with their kids. Some of them tie their hair up with small towel things. They all have one thing in common though. They all suddenly go silent when a smiling weirdo foreigner walks into their sauna and plops down beside them on the bench.

The korean saunas are more like a steam room than a sauna, and there are rooms of various temperatures from 47 to 97 C. After about 15 minutes of about medium heat, I go into the cold pool and some funny ladies show me how to do their kicking leg exercises. Balancing ourselves on the edge of the pool we all kick our legs about and splash around. I can't stop laughing it's so hilarious. Then we run around in the pool, with water up to our waists. All these Korean ladies are probably very formal and proper in public, but once they are with their friends, naked in a pool, it's party time!

Then there are four more pools of various temperatures, so I go in all of them alternating between sauna and pool, making my way up to the hottest pool temperature eventually. Soon it's around noon, so I grab some kimbap and go home for lunch.

I did some Skypes, cleaned up a bit and Dave came home, so we went out for his interview and he got the job.

So we had some soju on the river for a celebration and went for some more Korean food.

Fish in Dave's new town