A Dummies Guide to... Jjimjilbang-ing

Jjimjilbang (찜질방) [noun]: A Korean spa; a public sleeping place; a sauna; a public bath... These are just some of the definitions I've been given by Koreans. The definition you receive could very well influence your decision to visit one or not.

Jjimjilbang (찜질방) [noun]: The place where I learnt that the only thing worse than cleaning your private places in a room full of people, is not cleaning you private places in a room full of people. 

When I first heard about jjimjilbang-ing (not a real verb in English or Korean) I was horrified: getting in a bath, naked, with a load of strangers?! Sleeping on the floor, with a load of strangers?! No thanks.

But eventually, inevitably, I went. And now I'm addicted, I love it. Ric even loves it and he's a manly man.

Here's all you need to know about jjimjilbang-ing:

What should I expect?

• You enter, pay at the desk and are issued with a wrist band, a couple of hand towels, some shorts and a t-shirt. Prices vary from 5,000 - 15,000 won (£2.50-£7.50).
• The next thing you must do is take off your shoes, some places have a shoe cleaning/repairing area by the reception where you can leave your shoes for a couple of extra won. Otherwise, you find a shoe locker that corresponds to the number on your wrist band and store your shoes.
• Proceed to the changing room (여탕 for girls, 남탕 for boys), and find the locker that corresponds to your wrist band. Next, get naked! Or, try to conceal yourself as best as possible whilst changing into your standard issue shorts and t-shirt.
• Then go and find yourself a nice big sauna to sweat in. The sauna area is unisex, hence the shorts and t-shirts. In Europe, saunas are similar to a wardrobe, decked out in pine, with a box of coals in the corner. In Asia they look like this:

• 

  (Google images)

  Large spacious rooms, often clad in salt or filled with pine tress. There are mats and blankets to lie on. And they're not humid like saunas back home either, it's a dry heat.
• Once you've paid you can stay for as long as you like and use all of the facilities. Facilities usually include: massage, massage chairs (these are awesome), a restaurant, smoothie bar, internet cafe, gym, karaoke, tv room, games room, books and magazines, etc.
• When you're done with saunas you head back to the changing rooms for... a bath. Sounds strange. It is. You strip off nude, saunter across the room and slip into one of the many baths (they're more like pools to be accurate). There's usually a scalding hot pool, a couple of reasonably hot pools, and an ice cold pool. I guess the idea is to get gradually hotter and the plunge into the cold pool. And yes, there are other people there too, and they're also naked.

This whole naked bath thing was extremely foreign to me. That sort of thing just doesn't happen in England... or at least not legitimately. I was intimidated the first time I went, I just wasn't used to being naked around so many people.

I found, however, that as long as there aren't too many people around, it's fine. The women don't stare, even though I look at lot different them, it's jjimjillbang etiquette.

Exfoliation
Exfoliation in Korean is as big as Gangnam Style. They're crazy about it. The reasoning is that they want soft white skin (associated with wealth) rather than rough dark skin (associated with manual labour). So in the bathing area of a jjimjilbang be prepared to see women scrubbing themselves with brilo pads until they're red raw.

There's even a 'Korean rub' area where you can go and get professionally exfoliated by another naked woman. I haven't braved this [yet] as I like my tan, and it looks like a painful and undignified experience.

Sleeping
Once you're done bathing you can sleep in one of the numerous designated sleeping rooms. This is actually a really popular form of accommodation in Korea because it's so cheap. We did it once but it really wasn't a great night's sleep; it was too warm, too noisy, too bright, and too public.

Other Facts about Jjimjilbangs

• If you're male, be prepared to see men blow drying their pubic hair. Fortunately this doesn't happen in the women's baths.
• You can buy sachets of shampoo etc. from inside the changing room. This is great because it means you can literally decide, on impulse, that you fancy a bath with some Korean people, and just go, without having to worry about having the right things with you.
• Always shower before you get in the water, for hygiene reasons.
• There are steam rooms in the bathing area too.
• Sit-down showering in very popular in jjimjilbangs, you pull up a little plastic stool, sit in front of a mirror and shower. This facilitates a) exfoliation and b) hiding in a corner if you're a little shy.

It's a very strange concept for a western person, but it really is great. Definitely something everyone should try at least once, whilst in Korea.

Yuseong Hot Springs (Daejeon)

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.

Foot spas.

Swimming in Korea (again)

Six months on, now that we're savy to Korea's love of excessive pubic hair, we decided to give swimming in Korea another bash. After all, it's something we enjoyed doing every week back home in England, and we sure need the exercise.

The first time we went swimming in Korea was on a Saturday and it was heinously busy, so this time round we thought we'd try a Tuesday. We went to Cheonan Sports Complex straight after work. 

We bought swimming caps and goggles, all ready to assimilate, although I hadn't committed to buying a wet suit style bathing suit yet, they're so expensive (and not to mention ridiculous). First time round, I recall feeling disgustingly uncomfortable in my two piece bikini; Korea is still a very conservative country and they general public certainly weren't prepared see my white western skin flouncing around their pool. So today I wore one of Ric's football shirts. Loads of people were wearing t-shirts last time so I thought I was doing a good thing by covering my wobbly bits.

However... Unlike Saturdays, Tuesday nights are not family swimming nights. The damn pool was full of swimmers seemingly training for the next Olympics! I was immediately chastised for wearing my t-shirt and I think the life guard would have kicked me out of the pool had there not have been a substantial language barrier.

The huuuuge pool was once again over crowded beyond belief and I was subject to many stares and disapproving looks. 

I can swim fine, but I'm not very fast, I don't like getting my head under the water and I hate swallowing the water. Essentially, I swim like a granny. In our over crowded lane I made sure to set off swimming when there was no one behind me, but the Koreans are like torpedoes, they'd swim up to my ankles and passively aggressively bully me into stopping to let them over take. I felt like everyone was watching me, judging me.

It was intense. No leisurely after work swim for me. The pool is Olympic sized (50m), pools in England are not that long. It was hard for me to keep pace with the Koreans and I felt so uncomfortable. Everyone there was so serious; one girl even had a snorkel!! A snorkel in the swimming baths, I've never heard of anything so absurd in my life!

I lasted maybe half an hour before running back to the changing area for some comfort. Who'd have thought it, the room full of naked Korean women with ginormous bushes is now where I feel most comfortable. But even that was an ordeal.

The changing room was so crowded that every shower was occupied. People were queuing at each shower waiting for it to become available. When I finally found myself some space to shower in, a woman decided to stand behind me (naked, of course), put her things down in front of me, and stand an inch away from me whilst I showered. Silently bullying me with her nakedness to hurry up. PASSIVE AGGRESSIVENESS GONE MAD!!!! 

Once again, I'm traumatised by swimming in Korea. I'm glad I gave it a second chance, but NEVER, EVER AGAIN!!!!!!