24 Hour Sauna

Yes. That is right. A 24 Hour Relaxation Heaven. They are everywhere in Korea and I highly recommend you visit several times. We took Jun's cousin, Jenny and a family friend to the sauna. His name is Hack Jun and I think he is 10. I am pretty sure the children are with us to practice English! I am OK with that because the kids keep buying us things! :) Before I forget, every child here has a cell phone and is connected to someone or something a lot. There are beeps and texts sent every minute. I asked Jenny who she was texting and she said her friends. They reported what they had for dinner...what tv show they were watching. She reported she was stuck with me and speaking English.

Back to sauna. It is located within a tall 16 floor building...but we go down, way downstairs. It opens up to an enormous granite walkway that leads to a counter. There you pay $5 - YES! to get some shorts and a t-shirt. Women in pink, men in blue. You get a towel. Douglas Adam fans know how important a towel is while traveling! Then you split off from the fellas and head into the locker room. You lock up your shoes, give the key to another attendant at the soup bar and she gives you another key...this is for the locker that you store your clothes in. You change into the pink outfit, keep your undies on - no bra. And head out to the sauna. There is a pebble walkway to massage your feet on. This is good for all your internal organs. I ran on it.

To the right, mineral foot baths. Ahead, 4 little sauna rooms and one giant clay honeycomb thing. This honeycomb cave is the HOTTEST sauna. I am pretty sure this isn't lost in translation 120C. I was afraid. But went in. Everyone is pretty quiet. Meditating ... thinking about ice cream or snowy mountain tops...because it is Hell in here. You sweat the minute you walk in. There was an older man melting away in the corner. Were his wrinkles waves of water? His shirt was a dark blue. I am pretty sure they gave the guys light blue outfits.

I stayed in there for 6 minutes. I was sweaty and feeling great. Then I went into the ice room...

sat on top of an ice cube and melted my seat. That was neat. Then I tried the other saunas. The rock salt sauna where you lie on lots of tiny rock sized ...uh...salt rocks. I put one in my mouth. Yup. Salt. I discreetly spit it out and hid it. Then there was a wooden sauna that smelled of various Chinese herbs. There was the coal or slate sauna - basically an all black room. There was the ladies sleeping area. Which, if you are on a budget, you can stay the night at the 24 hour saunas! There are ant holes, places to catch a nap! There are various I - JOY massage chairs! My co-worker, Laura, knows how much I love these chairs! It cost me $1 for a 15 minutes massage. It was great! There are various snack bars, a restaurant and karaoke! This place is family friendly, kids in their little sauna outfits running around, but not being obnoxious. It was quite relaxing... until I went to bathe. There are naked ladies everywhere, all shapes and sizes, hanging about like some Greek painting! That didn't bother me, it made me less self conscious about my body actually! Jenny and I washed ourselves then sat in the hot pools. Dolphin fountains spitting hot, steaming, mineral water all over the place! Before I was relaxed, now I felt a delicious coma coming on.

We spend a good 3 hours there. 10:30pm - after I pretended to be Madonna and Justin Timberlake...Shayne sang Tears for Fears and Outkast...the kids sang various Korean love songs - snore....we went home.

An amazing evening for a whopping $6!