Extreme temperatures, nudity, and fish chewing on my feet? SIGN ME UP!

Yesterday was WONDERFUL, y'all.  I spent Sunday night at Jess and Katie's apartment, chatting and hanging out with all the other "left behind" teachers (most of the teachers are gone on vacation right now).  I was up laaaaaate--partly because of the party and partly because I came home and talked on Skype with Mark until about 5:30am my time (oopsie!).  So I slept super-late yesterday, which was wonderful.  And then I joined some friends for a trip to a jjimjilbang.

Y'all.  Oh my goodness.

A jjimjilbang is a spa...sort of.  It's also a public bathhouse...sort of.  Basically, it's uniquely Korean, and uniquely wonderful.

Fabulous Canadian Amy had been to several jjimjilbang and took us to her favorite, which was about 10 subway stops away.  We got there, paid our 7,000 won ($7), and put our shoes in little baby lockers that were assigned to each of us.  Then we took the locker keys to another bank of lockers, where we changed into the t-shirt and short uniform thingies they gave us and locked up our clothes.  Our first stop was the downstairs part, which was co-ed.

Downstairs, there were four sauna rooms, each with a different decor and set to a different temperature.  We started in one that was a little cooler than room temperature; I can't remember its Celsius temperature, but it was probably about 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  After a while in that room, we went into the next one, which felt like it was about 85.  We lay and relaxed, chatting a bit and generally enjoying the warmth and mood of the room.  (Like the others, the room had a low, domed ceiling, was made of rocks and wood, and smelled pleasantly earthy.)  Next, we moved to the hottest room.  I wish I could remember its temperature, but I would guess it was about 115 Fahrenheit.  And in this room, there was--inexplicably--a TV playing a kids' show in the corner (because nothing says "relaxing" like singing puppets), as well as little beds of rocks.  And y'all, this was one of my favorite parts of the whole jjimjilbang.  They were laid out almost like a row of coffins (!), and each was filled with little marbles of adobe...or something that looked like it.  So we lay in them, scootching around until the marbles conformed to our body shapes.  And they were warm, which was lovely.  So we lay there, relaxing and sweating, for about ten minutes....until we wussed out and moved.  :c)  The next room was a bit cooler, but still the second-hottest.

Also downstairs were a little restaurant, a water cooler (which we visited frequently), a nail salon counter, a workout area (including those fat-jiggling belt machines from the 1960s--AWESOME), some painful massage beds....and the best part of all.  The doctor fish.

For an extra 5,000 won (such a steal!), you can put your feet into a tank of water.  And in that tank of water are a few hundred fish, all of whom will happily nibble on your feet until all your dead skin and callouses are....well, fish food.  It sounds crazy, and it looks crazier--but it was nice!  After I got used to it, of course.  :c)  I wish I could have taken a picture for y'all, but I would have felt crunchy if I'd brought a camera.  Anyway, the doctor fish tickled my feet SO BADLY at first--I was practically having a seizure, I was laughing so hard--but then I got used to it, and it started to feel like me feet were tingly from being asleep.  After about 5 minutes, Jen, Jess, and Katie came over to join me...and they were all flabbergasted that I was so calm!  They were wriggling and giggling while I sat there, all Zen or something.  Muahaha!  They got used to it, of course.  And now our feet are all smooth and soft!

After we were finished downstairs, we steeled ourselves for the weirdest part of all: the upstairs.  (I know: weirder than the doctor fish, you say?  Yes.  Well....as weird, at least.)  Upstairs, everyone gets naked (!), but it's separated by gender at that point.  There's a big room with four warm tubs, two cold tubs, a shower area, a sit-down shower scrub-down area, some massage tables, and some crazypants-hot saunas.  We started in the warm tubs; the hottest was about as hot as a jacuzzi, and the coolest was lukewarm.  Then, I did a couple rounds of hot tub-cold tub-hot tub-cold tub, which made my skin tingle all over.  (I'd read in a guidebook that jumping back and forth from hot to cold is the quintessential jjimjilbang experience.)

Meanwhile, Amy, Katie, Jen and Jess all got scrub-downs.  I didn't spend the extra 15,000 for it (although I probably will next time).  Basically, they lay naked on massage tables while Korean women with exfoliating mitts scrubbed them and slapped them from head to toe for about twenty minutes.  (I'm not sure what the slapping was for, but they did it exuberantly.)  According to the ladies' reports, the scrub-down kind of hurt, but they felt super-clean and fresh.  And Fabulous Canadian Amy said that her scrub-down lady seemed particularly fixated on her tattoos and scrubbed at them extra hard; the poor lady was probably confused, since Koreans don't really get tattoos (unless they're gangsters, of course).   :c)

The saunas upstairs were INTENSE.  The hottest one was 90 degrees Celsius; by my estimation, that's about 190 or 195 degrees Fahrenheit.  (Is that right, Daddy?  I'm sure you know.)  It was SO HOT, but it felt wonderful...for about five minutes.  :c)  And right afterward, I pushed the button for the turbo pressure-wash cold shower next to the cold tub, so I certainly cooled down quickly!  I also bought a bottle of black bean tea to help with the cooling down.  (As you might suspect, it tasted NASTY--albeit healthy.)

We spent about three hours or so at the jjimjilbang, subjecting ourselves to all kinds of inventive torture.  Yet at the end, I was the most relaxed I've ever been.  As we ate dinner at the Japanese place next door, we laughed about how every bone and muscle in our bodies felt like wet noodles.

My time at the jjimjilbang was foreign, wonderful, a bit frightening, and completely fulfilling; in short, it was exactly what I came to Korea to experience.