So i went to a 찜질방 (jjimjilbang)

SO today was a relaxed Sat-day got up around 12 after sleeping late no thanks to my gaming addictions but anway that's neither here nor there.

I give Nicole a ring and ask her what's happening and we organise to visit a 찜질방 with me being the 3rd wheel to her and her bf, which i didn't particularly care about seeing as i could just wander off and do my own thing and let them go all smoochey smoochey if they want to.

So anyway i meet up with them on the bus and we head over to Wangsimni and head in...
Turns out that the bf is a presidential guard...... pretty cool huh? He finds it pretty boring just listening to the radio and hearing the President move from place to place. He wants to be a detective actually :P even though technically that'd be a demotion.... more excitement he says.


So we go to the counter and pay 5000 to get into the place and head to the shoe lockers before getting our clothes and changing, putting our own clothes into one of the 5 banks of lockers numbering 1- 400 sumthing..
nearby is a door o what appears to be some kind of giant wet room......

Basically one word to describe this place is ...... ENORMOUS.
I go down stairs to find a HUGE floor space in total probably the same as a goodly sized function hall. with 4 different temperature sauna rooms (everything except the sleeping rooms here are unisex) (36 67 75 86 degrees) all with people sleeping in them soaking up the heat.
BUT WAIT! there's more!! after the soaking in the hot rooms you get out and head into the cool room...

This cool room is like an inside out igloo.... the snow's on the inside.... cooling elements run along the walls of the domed interior with the "ceiling" (if a vaguely spherical room could be said to have a ceiling) lined with white, quartz-y looking rocks (to reflect the cold i'd imagine). YOu sit in here and cool yourself down before heading back out and soaking up more heat.

I also had a go at a full body massage with extra attention on my back cost me $60 for 90 minutes.... which isn't all that bad really. not a bad massage... but then i'm hardly a connoisseur for massages seeing as my muscles are for the most part quite supple and loose.

basically i just wanted to say that this place was enormous.... oh btw those sleeping rooms have... maybe 50beds arranged in bunks for anybody to sleep on, the rooms are a comfortable 20 or just below degrees and thus you don't need to worry about blankets. but it seems that people were sleeping everywhere.... on the floor, in the movie rooms, the sauna rooms, the 'bath' room (where you shower.... i'll explain the whole process to you in a bit) everywhere!!! mainly cos the entire place is designed for nothing but rest and relaxation.... inside the same facility is a video games/pc bang, a noraebang (sing K), a small restaurant, dvd rooms as well as 2-4 large public movie rooms not to mention the gym, also availble is a ice cream and a fresh juice bar.

The crazy thing about this place is that it costs $6 if you don't buy anything from the shop etc etc and you can stay there for pretty much as long as you damn well like in fact you can even arrange to sleep there over night if you want to.... but basically it's all very cheap.

So now onto the explanation of 'bathing/showering" at a 찜질방.
1 remove clothes and walk from the lockers to the bathing.... hall i'll call it because room is an insult and chamber makes it sound smaller than it is.
So i open the door to find 3 large circular pools right near the doorway with 3 frogs sitting on top of where they join forming a water feature with them spitting water into their respective pools.
to the left into the closest corner is a bank of your typical shower blocks.. with the main defference being that the dividers are a token addition made of clear glass, more to stop water splashing over that for any real privacy.
The reason for the lack of privacy is that, because this is all found in the men's section... everyone's walking around naked. :S no it wasn't pretty.

So me.. and Jordon (whom i'd only just met maybe 4 hours previously) is now walking around naked :S but he says he's going to teach me how to shower korean style.
1/ shower off, use body wash or soap to cleanse body and face
2/ get into the spa (40 degrees) and soak for .... however long you want really

**i'll also add here that on the wall of one of the spas a guy was just sleeping there totally naked :S***

3/ get out of spa and go to the squatting showers

*these ones are the same as the one you see with the Japanese ones which you use before entering an Onsen*

4/ get your scouring pad and go to town on yourself.

*now another interesting "hoi ha ngan gai" part for me is when Jordon told me not to worry abotu my back because as friends it's expected that we scrub each other's backs ...
this is what I said "oh... of course... sure thing "

this is what i thought O_O "YA FKN WANNA WHAT?!?!?!!?!"

BUUUUT when in Rome.....

so i turned around and he scrubbed my back and i scrubbed his (yeah yeah yeah gay gay gay go on say i KNOW you're thinking it)

i'll note that i'd only just met this guy and just did stuff i wouldn't even consider asking let alone doing with any of my friends... ah but then Aust is Aust and Korea is Korea.

so after scrubbing we rinse off and head back over to the first set of showers to rinse off some more and wash hair if so desired.

After washing up you towel off and go to large mirrored areas where you can cotton bud your ears and then moisturise your skin.... and most importantly stare lovingly at your beautiful self, resplendently naked.



*cough*


Anyway. That was my first experience at a 찜질방.... an experience i am DEFINITELY going to be repeating in the near future. Maybe i'll even have picture ;)

Laterz