Jjimjilbang Revisited

This is my second time visiting a Korean jjimjilbang 찜질방. The first one I went to was in Seoul back in 2004 with the MESCORP girls where we were forced by our loud and obnoxious Korean lady tour guide to strip bare immediately upon countdown (10, 9, 8, 7...!) and were then confronted by the terrible sight of this wrinkled old lady which had sagging boobs that looked like wind-dried prunes. We all dropped our towels and ran back into the locker room.

To quote from Life of Pi, "First wonder goes deepest. Wonder after that follows in the impression of the first." After that initial fright and one more experience at a naked hot spring in Taiwan with my best friend, I thought nothing could amaze me this time.

Wham! They were in my face. Naked boobs, naked thighs, naked buttocks, fleshy women, thin model-like chicks, ajumma with permed hair, innocent young kids, all gathering around the hot pools like animals at a waterhole. For all my experience, I still felt shell-shocked. Some people can go around like it's the most natural thing to do since creation but not me. Feeling really self-conscious, I used my arm to cover my upper half and thankfully, I had my toiletries basket for the other half.

Till now I still can't understand the rationale, nor the fun of bathing naked, en masse.

But the physical feeling of enjoying a hot spring is a totally different thing, altogether. Janice had brought me to this place which is the largest hot spring in Busan near Oncheonjang 온천장 (温泉场) subway station. If someone hadn't showed me the way, I don't think I would have imagined there would be a hot spring there because the area is not like Taiwan's Beitou 北投 at all where all the hot springs are so concentrated. After leaving the subway station we went up an escalator to a street mall and down another escalator, crossed the road and entered a hotel through a side door (picture above). One more escalator up and we had reached Hurshimchung "The Best Spa in the World".

Janice said the receptionist guy was posing for me to take pictures.

We got our keys and entered a locker room to put our shoes. Then we went into another locker room to take off our clothes. This was the area where everybody started walking around naked. Then we entered the spa area... which was huge! It had like this large dome above our heads to let in sunlight and two big pools in the middle for kids and adults to soak themselves. At the sides were smaller pools of varying temperatures which boasted champagne flavor, herbal flavor, heated wooden floor and jacuzzis.

After a while I couldn't stand the trapped heat inside the indoor area and guess what? They had an outdoor area too! We stepped through the double doors and enjoyed the soak in the hot tub with the cold air blowing in our faces. There were many sauna rooms too but they were mostly full. My partner went for the 20,000 won cucumber massage and exfoliating scrub while I went to the bathing area and scrubbed myself facing a mirror, together with other people. What a weird feeling to be bathing together with so many other people! Still, it was a nice time to thoroughly cleanse myself and relax...

Then we dressed in bathrobes and went down a flight of stairs to a common area (unisex) with heated marble floors and enjoyed hot-spring eggs and red bean ais kacang. Yummy! Then off we went to another hot sauna and a cold sauna shaped like an igloo with 10 degrees Celsius and one more round of shower and left the place.

The whole experience cost me only slightly over RM30. That's so worth it! Considering the number of naked bodies I've seen...