Spas vs. Jjimjilbang

Ok so this starts for last Sunday the 15th.
We went to a jjimjilbang. Now first, Korean spas are different than ours... Korean spas = nakedness. anyways, back to jjimjilbang ('bang' means room). So you take off your shoes and store them in a locker in the main lobby. Then you go up the elevator to the change rooms and change. Everyone is running around naked. But no one minds or cares (obviously men and women are separated). I was not quite up for this so we all decided to just do the main part of jjimjilbang, the saunas (Koreans just call them hot/cold rooms). Anyways. EVERYONE changes into the exact same clothes, roomy shorts and t-shirt. If you are planning to go in the baths (read: public bath) you have to go shower, and shower good (this is more important if you are going in hot spring baths). Anyways. The jjimjilbang that we went to is considered small. But it has 9 floors I think (#9 was being remodeled). So we go in the elevator (which had a really wooden floor while the rest of the elevator was metal and mirror), to the floor where the hot and cold rooms are. There are over a dozen rooms. Temperatures fun from 5 - 92 C, if I remember correctly. Cherry, Hoyeon and I went in everyroom, picking which we liked best. Cherry would not sit still at all. Every room was dome shaped and each room was made differently. My favorite one the outside was covered with amethyst and geodes. The inside was similar. There were rooms made of mud, ice, bricks made from quartz, obsidian, some had TVs built into the walls. So the rooms are on either side of a large common area, and rather than cushions and such there are long wooden logs, cut in half, lengthwise, and some hard foam pillows. It was very comfortable to lay on the floor against the logs. The rooms and common area make up 1/2 of this floor. There is also a drink/smoothie/icrecream bar, a cafe/restaurant, we had really really good egg drop noodle soup. And then gelato on a stick, like a popsicle but bigger and fatter.
Cherry showed me around the other floors. The floor under the jjimjilbang was like how we in North America think of spas. Massage, esthetics, hair, dark rooms with big comfy chairs that are actually beds, like the seat part is extended so your whole body is all on the same level. Then there was another room with many of these chairs and a large tv so people would read, or write, or quietly chatter, or nap.
Other floors that really didn't concern me included, a full regular (meaning wear a swimsuit) pool, the floor with the baths, a bunch of large gym rooms for various sports, inc golf.

So this was fun, definately relaxing - until Cherry and Hoyeon were playing and Hoyeon fell and started bawling loudly in the quite room. Maybe next time, or more likely the time after that, I will try the baths. We definatly need the jjimjilbang in Canada.

And later on Sunday I went and had my hair cut, conditioned, colored, washed and styled for 37000 won, which is about 40$CAD. Isn't that amazing! And the salon people were very nice