찜질방

A few nights ago, I experienced a 찜질방 for the first time...(what is a 찜질방...?)

I had been out in the 목동 area with some friends for supper and noraebang and we were out past the last subways, and didn't feel like cabbing home, so......we decided to try a public bathhouse for the night >~<

There were four of us, two guys (one Korean speaker), and two girls (me and a fellow American).

Once we paid (about 10$ each) and were each given a clean shirt, shorts, and two small towels, we went to our gender-appropriate areas.

It was a bit scary, since my friend and I had never been to one before and neither of us spoke Korean....so we had no idea what the ladies were telling us, but I think we managed alright~

We put our stuff in lockers and then nervously went to the shower room. We sat in a hot tub-style bath for a bit before quickly squatting to shower. As we did that, there were ladies (not clothed) cleaning the shower room, milling around, watching us. Yay for being awkward foreigners~~~

It was weird to be nude in front of strangers, and even in front of my friend, but perhaps I dealt with it a bit better because I may not have been all that sober at the time.

We dressed and were pointed in the direction of the sleeping room. The sleeping room was one large, dark room where people were literally scattered about, sleeping. Snoring. Loudly.

We eventually found our guy friends (who saved us some mats) and we all slept from about 4am to 9am (?).

Before we all left, the guys took full advantage of the facilities and sat in all the different sauna rooms they had, including the eskimo room.

I'd have liked to have taken some pictures, but I didn't think it was the most appropriate place to taking photos.....

Overall, it was a very very interesting experience. I think I'd like to go again someday... ^_^