I am in
So today I have been just tagging along with Paul, and this morning we went to a 찜질방, a sauna or public bath. It was quite the experience.
So first, is that in the bath part of the bath house, there is an exceptional amount of nudity. The baths were on the floor beneath the locker room, and it was set up in a big square with a waterfall in the middle, and open showers and swimming pool like baths at different temperatures on the sides. I realized when the towel they gave me was the size of a hand towel, that there really wasn’t a good way to avoid complete nakedness. At first that made me super uncomfortable, but I think I made the conscience decision that if the people around me didn’t think it was a big deal that we were all naked, I wasn’t going to either.
At least I tried. It did make it weird though that I was the only naked non-Korean. A, I’m sure I was the first naked white person some of them had ever seen. B, I had no idea what I was doing. In the women’s area, I didn’t have Paul there to help me make sense of everything, so I spent most of the time confused, and for me confusion+ nudity= anxiety. For example, I couldn’t find the stairs down to the baths because I didn’t understand any of the signs, so for five minuets I walked in circles around the locker room, too self conscience of my Korean and nakedness to ask for directions.
Second, did you know that you change into the uniform and go the sauna in the co-ed area before you go to the baths? Well, I didn’t either. I realize now the lady must have thought I was crazy when I showed up squeaky clean to ask for a uniform to go the sauna so I could sweat a lot. Poor Paul and his friend also had to wait forever for me too. Oops! Well, now I know…
Third, I love찜질방 and want to go often. Even with the succession of embarrassing mistakes I enjoyed myself today. Now that I have a better handle on what to do, I can see my self enjoying it even more in the future. Just chilling in the raw (as Sunroot would say) and pampering your self. I could get used to that…
4 comments:
I remember being in the baths in Japan. My brother and I were the only ones in there, and we were too self concious about being naked in front of each other, so we ended up wearing our swimming suits. Lol.
nudity is awesome!
i had to get naked with my bro too. once in japan and before that in china a while ago (with dad no less!). imagine how awkward that might be. but we both lost the glasses and kept our eyes up. good stuff. keep being naked kathryn. bask in that awesome stuff
whoa you're in korea??
and in response to your comment, you know i don't feel that way about ALL of you. just the long island version :P
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