The Jjimjilbang was a culture shock through and through, and I loved every moment! Upon entering this large office-block type building, we were greeted by a receptionist who took our 8,000 won, handed us three tiny towels and some mustard yellow baggy shorts and oversized t-shirt. This could only be a good sign…right? After engaging in a brief Korean conversation and leaving none the wiser, we headed in the direction the reception pointed. We worked out that the number on our receipt was our locker number and we put our shoes in the first set of lockers we came across. These were tiny and obviously for shoes. One hurdle down.
Moving on, we got our first eyeful of nudity. Walking into the dressing rooms, women were going about their business in the nude. Drying their hair, bent over, putting lotion on their bodies, bent over, brushing their hair, bent over, who’d have thought there were so many reasons to bend down? There was even a TV so if you got bored of getting dressed, you could just flop down and catch up with the latest news in the buff. Standard. I was feeling ready to get stuck in myself.
We headed to some bigger lockers where my friend explained that she thought this was where we changed into the mustard shorts and t-shirt, which after putting on we both agreed were unnecessarily reminiscent of prison clothes. This, I thought, is how it would feel to be incarcerated. It was a purely female environment, everyone just hanging about and all wearing the same horrendous uniform. Why these clothes were necessary I couldn’t fathom? All I knew was that I felt particularly uncomfortable wearing these clothes, especially without a bra or knickers. To add insult to injury as we walked up stairs, it became a unisex area. Surprise! As some young guys walked by and stared at my friend and I (foreigners in the Jjimjilbang), I realised how terrible these clothes were and how naked I felt despite them.
I was somewhat distracted though the ‘sleeping pods’ my friend pointed out to me. Essentially these were small tunnels or alcoves cut into the walls and tiled. How anyone could sleep on the hard tiles was beyond me and why would you want to? I could only hope they provided a mat. We continued to walk into a large open space with a slightly risen stage on one side, a line of broken massage chairs on the other side and a huge expanse of empty space in the middle. On the stage, a girl was curled up on the hard floor with just a little padded pillow under her head. Mats weren’t in fact provided for sleeping then! I believe the whole hall was for sleeping but oddly sleeping on the floor here didn’t quite make it onto my Korean ‘to do’ list!
We sauntered over to the small café and ordered ramen and a tea – which of course turned out to be something totally different – an ice-cold type of blackcurrant squash drink which was actually really nice. We sat on the floor by the tables and ate our large, hot bowl of perfect ramen, not too spicy and for 3,000 won, I was very happy.
We then moved onto the spas. I assumed this was where the nakedness began but it turned out I was preempting that. We had to do the saunas in the unisex section first. So wearing our prison outfits we entered a room with hot pink crystals on the floor and a towering ceiling that seemed to move to a point as if it were a chimney. We sat down on the burning crystals and tried to relax. Relax in our prison clothes. After a while, we began to overheat so we left and headed for the next room. This room had crystals in the walls and huge chunks of purple amethyst glinting out of the ceiling. The floor was tiled and warm and we had a little pad to put our head on. We lay down and enjoyed the surroundings. A couple of girls were playing music on their phone…this didn’t help my relaxation but luckily I was too on edge about the upcoming nakedness to really care. Having said that as we left the sauna to go down to the spas, I did feel at ease and happy so perhaps the saunas worked better than I thought!
The moment arrived. We took off our prison clothes and exposed our bodies. We headed, naked, to the spa room and entered. A few pairs of eyes darted in our direction as they realized we weren’t Korean. Waygook’s in the Jjimjilbang! We had a quick shower and jumped in the first pool we saw to cover the nakedness. This one was a green-tea-infused pool which I found out by surprise when the large sack of green tea which popped up between my legs as I sat down. ‘What’s that?’, I yelped as I felt and saw this dark, heavy item bouncing between my thighs. Giggling, my friend explained about the infusion. The water was a dark green colour and smelt like the drink. It was like a hot bath and having only had a shower available since arriving in Korea, it felt amazing.
The woman sat next to me hastily left, I’m sure it was because she was too hot and not because of me! The pools were situated in a circle and there were walls between them to sit on. Women were dotted around the pools in a haphazard way that I liked. It looked kind of arty. In the corner of the room there were a few lines of mirrors with chairs and large buckets along them. Women sat here and rubbed each other with mits to exfoliate and carefully wash each other. It looked like a dressing room after a strip show but somehow more glamorous. Behind that was another area with beds, I didn’t even question this at this point!
We moved on and my friend showed me the way to the outside pools. It was very cold outside so we practically ran into the hot tub! We jumped straight in and again, it felt incredible. I loved having the steam rising from the water into the cold night and just sitting their chatting and relaxing. I got up at one point to get my drink, you can carry the flask around with you, and my friend said the steam was pouring off my boiling body into the cold air. The only thing to do was to grab the bowl from the side and pour freezing cold water over ourselves. We only did this once!
We then moved indoors and tried out some of the other pools. One had jet streams that were so strong it felt like it tore half the skin from my back off. The jets were also at questionable heights and so they came into unwanted contact with some more sensitive body parts!
We then decided to check out the bed area. Body rubs and massages! We opted for a full body rub for 20,000 won. We weren’t sure who we asked for these until we saw a small glass room towards the back of the bed area full of naked ladies. Could they be the masseuses? They clocked us looking their way, grinned and came out, totally naked. We paid and they ushered us to a table, far away from each other but close enough that we could still make faces of shock, pain and disbelief! I saw my friend’s masseuse start to put on some flimsy lingerie, her age was perhaps edging 65 and I’m not sure the lingerie was going to be all that supportive. As she started to lean over my friend and rub her body hard, I mentally wished my friend luck! I looked at my masseuse from my vulnerable position on the bed and noted that she was also putting lingerie on her bottom half…not so much with the top half for mine though. I got the breast experience!
To begin, she poured a bowl of hot water all over my body without warning. It was just the right temperature and I was surprised to hear myself groan a little bit. Cringe. Then the mitt came out and she began to rub my body, hard, fast and without mercy. I noted all the grey balls of my skin that flicked off to lay on the floor and bed around me. This has got to be doing wonders I thought, gritting my teeth through the discomfort. It didn’t so much hurt as felt extremely weird and uncomfortable. That’s even without thinking about the fact that I had my leg up in the air and a topless Korean lady was rubbing rather personal areas with a rough mitt. After being tossed around from side to back, to side, to front, my masseuse began to say something to me. I looked up. Wrong thing to do. I was confronted with lingerie and had to move my nose quickly so that it didn’t come directly into contact with her. She moved on and I was pleased I had a little more personal space again. It ended with another douse of perfect hot water and a very quick massage which was appreciated despite the slight pain inflicted.
She indicated that the activity was over. I was very grateful as it had been quite the experience and I hopped off the bed – only just avoiding slipping straight off onto the floor – and over to my friend. Our looks of bewilderment were probably pretty obvious and we ran off to the showers comparing experiences. At one point, my friend had looked so shocked, I had found it very hard not to laugh on the table so I wanted to hear all about her full body rub too!
After a quick shower and drying ourselves off under a red lamp like turkeys, we decided to wrap up this Jjimjilbang experience. I think I would go back and now I feel so much more prepared. What I loved about it was the lack of judgement and the normality of the nakedness. We’re all women, we all have bodies and it’s about time, we embraced this openness in the UK. It was so refreshing to feel comfortable in my own skin among women in a spa. I think I felt more comfortable being naked there than I do sometimes on a beach in a bikini – of course, this could also have something to do with the lack of men! All in all, a successful Wednesday night activity. Let’s get naked!
Finally, it came out. Two long grey lengths of fish were laid down on the burning hot stone grill in front of us. The silver skin simmered as the long gutted fish lay there cooking. Eel. Who would have thought on entering that this would be our simple Sunday night meal? The eel was cooked and then chopped into manageable chunks and lettuce leaves were brought over. In typical Korean style, which we didn’t know too well at the time, we added the eel to a lettuce leaf we held in our hand, added pepper sauce and other sides and then ate it all in one. It was yummy. Not something I would have predicted. The drunk guy wouldn’t leave us alone once the Eel came. ‘How is it?’, ‘Mmm?’, ‘Give me your number’ – which my boyfriend did. He even drop called him to check it was the real number. Luckily, the English phone number didn’t work in Korea. Score!
We left the restaurant full and pretty surprised. We were 60 dollars worse off and wondering if we would have food poisoning on our first day of school. Even so, we were happily bemused, knowing we’d left with a story to tell. Until we saw the other Eel’s in the tank out the front. Long, black fish squirming about like blood-sucking leeches. My stomach turned slightly as we walked away praying for the day we had data and google translate on our phones.
Everyone shared a room with a roommate. Girls and boys were not allowed to share a room or even visit each other’s dorms, which was a struggle for my boyfriend and I who had one suitcase between us. I shared with a girl who was friendly, down-to-earth and liked to take time to watch movies in the dark in her room at night. This made it easy for me as I knew when I got back to the room, it would be bed time and I wouldn’t be woken up later.
