So, I broke Ric's brand new laptop that his parents so kindly bought him and my parents so kindly carried all the way to Korea for us. I was mortified. I knocked it ever so slightly and the screen shattered, but luckily we found a Toshiba repair centre... in Daejeon.
Daejeon is a major transport hub due to its central location. It is one hour south of Cheonan.
While we were there dropping off the laptop for repair we visited Yuseong Hot Springs. The natural springs are known for their healing properties, and we thought the 45°C water would be a lovely way to defrost from the -10° outside! We took a taxi, as we were lazy and couldn't be bothered to find out about the buses, and were driven by a really friendly man who spoke English and enthused about the "foot bath" that was in the area. He dropped us off, honking his horn and yelling at us to "ENJOY!!!" We found the foot bath and it really was great; sitting knee-deep in scalding hot water with my coat and woolly hat on, with snow on the ground all around us!
Yuseong is an area with a lot of natural springs, and there are dozens of spas where you can go in and bathe (naked, of course!) There are a lot of spatels in the area, (hotels with spas, in case you didn't get that).
I'm now familiar with Korea's love of public bathing and with that comes a tolerance for Korean nakedness, but the spa we went to was far too crowded for my liking; when there's skin rubbing on skin as somebody squeezes past you it's a sign that there are too many naked people in the room. My experience was made even more uncomfortable by a lady who had apparently never seen a western person before, she followed me around the spa asking me questions in Korean, which I could neither understand nor answer.
My evaluation of the day was 'foot spa good, nakedness spa not so good'.
Fortunately, the intercity bus terminal is in Yuseong, so we were able to make a hasty dash home to Cheonan, away from the nudes.
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| Foot spas. |
