It's Like A Sauna In Here

Several weeks ago Jess and I paid our first visit to a Korean sauna. The public bath and sauna house, or jjimjilbang, is alive and kicking here in Korea. Apart from the glowing red neon crucifix, the sauna's cartoonish soup bowl and four wavy rising steam lines is the most common advertising sign seen in Seoul.

Most of these spas cost around 7,000 won (7$) with the fancier ones being a bit more expensive and the seedier ones being a tad cheaper. Your entrance fee gives you access to several baths (ranging in temperature from mountain stream cold to lobster boiling hot), dry and wet saunas, workout equipment, massage chairs and a whole host of other facilities.

With the combined popularity and cultural perspective, why then, you may ask, did it take us so long to actually make a sojourn to the jjimjilbang? Public nakedness mostly. We both felt oddly modest about visiting the sauna for the first time with fellow co-workers. Naked with strangers, not a problem, you'll never see them again anyway. Naked with friends, heck, your exposure with them goes deeper than cloth layers. But, co-workers were a bit different, it was sort of an in-between land of not caring crossed with self-conscious embarassment. Does that make any sense? Ah well, our first visit quickly quelched any of those shy and self-effacing feelings.

Welcome to the Daeduck jjimjilbang. Upon entering and paying your fee you receive his and hers attire. Styling blue jumpers for men and dashing pink jumpers for women (children wear yellow, although we do not know at what age they move up to the blues and pinks). Then, it's off to your respective single sex locker rooms, baths and saunas.

This particular jjimjilbang contains eight different temperature baths, two steam saunas and one dry sauna. Men of all ages relax in the pools sharing conversation and laughter. There is a general sense of comfort and peacefulness moving from pool to pool (my favorite bath was the waterfall pool in which a huge plume of water comes crashing down upon your head). If the saunas do not soothe tired muscles then there are options for foot, face and full-body massages.

After soaking one can don the fancy blues or pinks and meet in the co-ed area. This large area between the two single sex saunas is a place for women and men to meet and show of their ultra sexy clothing. It contains a bar, restaurant, more saunas (see picture: our particular favorite was the ice room complete with a snowman), massage chairs (total awesomeness) and areas to sleep. Your 7,000 won entry fee is good for 24 hrs so many people will use the jjimjilbang as a place to spend the night (notice the tiny little sleeping hole cubbies behind Jess in the second picture). We were thinking that this is might be a cool (and cheap) form of housing the next time we decide to cruise around Korea on a multi-day trip.

Yup, the saunas will definitely be a mainstay during the long upcoming winter months. Now,the only thing left for us to decide is would it be too pathetically sad if we started bringing papers to grade to the jjimjilbang?