Spa Time

On my first day here with hours to kill before everyone else arrived, I decided to go to a Korea spa! Hongdae Happy Day Spa was just a few minutes walking down the street for me so I went in with a goal in mind- getting a naked scrub down by an ajumma. And I did it! It was quite an interesting experience...

So I walked in and paid 7000 won for use of all the baths and showers and stuff. I got a key for a shoe locker, put my shoes in, and proceeded to the clothes locker. And then I stood awkwardly in front of it for a while. I saw a naked old lady when I walked in, but there weren't very many people so I had nobody to follow example. I eventually took off my clothes except my undies and started wandering around, when an old lady in undies pointed at the shower/baths area and gestured for me to get naked lol. So I did as told, and ventured into the showers. There were some standing showers, but most of them were short ones where you sit on a stool. It was quite strange, I didn't really know what to do lol. I scrubbed down a little bit and then went to go sit in one of the hot baths. There were a few ladies over there and I was looking around awkwardly to not see them. One girl started to get a body scrub- my number one goal for the day! It's kinda weird though cuz she is getting scrubbed in this slightly closed off area, but still open for everyone to see. Her friend went and stood there and talked to her while she was getting scrubbed too....

I still didn't really know what to do at this time, so I just wandered from bath to bath. There were two hot ones, a lukewarm one, and a cold one. It actually feels pretty good going back and forth from hot and cold! There was a sauna room but I walked in for 5 seconds and decided it was too hot lol. After soaking for a bit, I wandered back outside and told a lady that I wanted to get a body scrub. I really should've learned some basic Korean phrases because that was so difficult lol. She had to go to her purse to pull out the amount of money that I needed to pay, I was so confused! So i gave her 20,000 won for a body scrub (and also shampoo but I didn't know I agreed to that lol) and she took it in to the ajumma doing the scrubbing. The ajumma signaled at me to go shower and sit in the tubs, so I did back and forth showering and bathing for a while. Eventually.... it was my turn!

It's super gross thinking about how much germs you share with other people there lol. I laid on a plastic table while she scrubbed me vigorously with rough mittens. It probably would've hurt, but I was kind of used to the feeling because I have a Japanese shower scrubby thing that feels the same. But it was crazy! She scrubbed off so much dead skin, it was like I was surrounded by giant pencil shavings. She maneuvered me around to scrub me very very thoroughly everywhere. After losing a pound of skin, she lathered me up and poured a bucket of water on me. Next was the shampooing. It had a nice peppermint smell and made me want to eat Andes mints. Then my head became very menthol-y feeling, it was very strange having a cold head and warm everything else lol. After she clawed at my head in a kinda good but kinda painful way, she released me to the showers. I rinsed off, ready to get out of there because my portable wifi ran out of battery. I took my naked self back to the lockers but reached a problem... they only gave me one towel but I used it to shower. So I kind of dried off with a wet towel, but it was kind of okay since it was hot and I was already getting dry. I didn't want to push my sign language skills today and ask for another one, since nobody else had one either. I think the hair dryer cost 1000 won to use so I just walked out looking like a crazy person with wet hair and strolled back to my place. I didn't have time to check out the co-ed part, so hopefully I'll get to go to another Korea spa before I leave! Goal #1, Korean Spa and Body Scrub, achieved!