OMG everyone needs to stop what they’re doing right now and book the first ticket you can find to South Korea. Last night I stayed in a local bathhouse in Seoul and I cannot believe the levels of amazingness I experienced. It’s cheaper than a hostel and is also heaven on earth. Why no one told me about this sooner is a mystery to me. In addition to all the saunas, salt baths, and resting places like the oxygen room, it has five floors of everything else you could ever want; an arcade, 2 restaurants at normal prices with awesome food, snacks! Beer! An internet room! There are gentle fans everywhere blowing softly on you. You can even do your laundry! Get ready, because I’m about to rate this as the most amazing experience of my lifetime… ok, I just did it.
The massaging waterfall was my favorite, an extra forcefull shower of water that comes down on your back while you sit on a stool in a pool of warm water up to your knees. It worked out all my backpack knots and I’m feeling like jello. If I lived in South Korea I would not rent an apartment, I would stay exclusively at the bathhouse. Why doesn’t everyone do that?
So right now I’m the cleanest I’ve ever been, sitting on a door stoop and posting this in the street from my phone (another amazing thing about Seoul is the whole city has free wireless) because I am so excited about it. I’m getting ready to catch a train to Gwangju where I could not find a hostel but just found out they have a bathhouse. Here I come. Yes!
This photo is outside of the spa, where they have a little woodland creature scene set up. TeeHee.
Last night was night two in the life of a Korean bathhouse hopper. The spa in Gwangju is not as fancy as the one in Seoul, but it’s only seven bucks and you get to stay for a full twenty-four hours. I’m still kind of totally amazed that this is even allowed. You get to sleep here, and just kick it in the bath all night / day, eat food, drink beer, watch TV, sit around naked in the sauna, and work out in the gym lifting weights, for seven dollars. What about that thing they say where if it sounds too good to be true it probably is… what’s the catch? They also say you create your own reality. I’m going to go ahead and give myself props for this one.
I almost ruined my life and bought a puppy last night. The only thing that saved me was the fact that it may have gotten me kicked out of the bathhouse. The street the spa is on is lined with pet shops, stocked full of sad little puppies that want you to take them home. They jump up and down just praying they’ll get a chance to lick your fingers. The employees don’t want you petting them, so I had to appear serious and inquire about the price, and also ask for a business card so they’d let me pick one up and squeeze it. A fluffy white Pomeranian that weighs a dime will run you $600, maybe $300 if you’re Korean.
I like hanging out with all these Korean middle-agers that just ignore me and drink tea. Hostels are interesting, but it’s kind of a scene. There is surely this I’m-a-young-worldly-fun-hip-traveling-partying-drunk-person vibe to it all. It gives me a hangover just thinking about it. It never ceases to amaze me how interesting people think it is that they’ve gotten drunk. I could fill an Olympic sized pool if I had a grain of sand for every time I’ve heard the story, “I was sooooo wasted!” and that’s it, no build-up, plot, or punch line, but somehow it’s suppose to be extraordinary.
If you’re telling me a story about how you got naked in public, stole a blue cake from a urinal, and then woke up next to the toilet and a half eaten grilled cheese sandwich, after you consumed a bottle of whiskey to yourself, I don’t really find it all that remarkable. It only stands to reason someone would do that after soaking the areas of the brain that deal with rational thought, and common sense, in eighty-proof liquor. Tell us you did that because it served some purpose in your life, and even though behaving in that way is ridiculously embarrassing and almost always unnecessary, you got brave consciously and went ahead and did it anyway, then you’ll start impressing people.
In a way, it’s kind of therapeutic to just watch the script from a distance, especially all the game playing that goes on when it comes to crushes. It’s given me some perspective on the stupid shit that went down in my twenties, that felt so serious; watching the guys trying to work the girls, while the girls attempt to manipulate with wiles in a futile effort to conquer boys who are impenetrable because they’re so caught up in an inner struggle between who they are and who they have to pretend to be in order to avoid all the mental abuse their bros will award them if they sniff out any sensitivity. That stuff used to kill me. I just didn’t understand why guys were so inconsistent. Now that feeling a need for them to like me does not blind me, it’s so clear what’s going on. You can be sure to go crazy trying to understand people that don’t understand themselves.
A friend and I were just talking about “chemistry” and I realized that for a long time I had been chasing that feeling, which now I realize is actually just mislabeled anxiety. You get involved in all this head shit with people, who aren’t clear with themselves, and can’t show you they care for you in any definitive way, and then it’s a constant cycle of insecurity and relief, insecurity and relief… I think we confuse this feeling of continuous agitation with excitement, and then erroneously think the absence of that feeling means we’re not into someone. So basically we’re just setting ourselves up for a constant mind fuck.
No thanks. I’ll take naked, middle aged, tea-drinking Koreans over that scene any day of the week. It’s such an amazing feeling to know that, without a doubt, everyone thinks you’re weird. You’re different, and you’ll never be one of them. They’re probably laughing at stuff you do, and making fun of you, and it doesn’t matter in the least. The sun still shines, green grass still grows, and you can walk around taking photos of puppies and dried fish in the freedom and comfort of knowing that no one expects you to be like them, so you can just be yourself.
I’m at Dunkin’ Donuts on the volcanic island, Jeju, in South Korea. Upon arriving, I made short work of finding a jjimjilbang (bathhouse), climbed into a bubbling pool of water, had a beer, and went to bed. I woke up at seven, hopped in the hot tub for a soak, showered, then started walking around looking for some Internet. I’ve found a couple of drawbacks to the paradise that is bathhouse living.
A) They don’t really like you coming and going. It’s not a hotel, so once you leave you’re out. I was able to swing a deal with the front desk lady so I could hang onto my locker and leave my pack. At least I think we have an agreement. There was head nodding and smiling, but that could mean anything really. Later, I’m going to try going in to drop off my laptop and test out the results…
B) You have to pay for Internet on their computers, you can’t just use wireless on your own. This is a bummer, because downtime in hostels is usually spent researching what to do. Now I have to carry my laptop around looking for cafes.
C) There are no windows, so even if you’re up for hanging out all day and night, never venturing into the world outside, you’re completely cut off from the sense of time passing. Never seeing daylight makes me feel funny inside.
I’m currently caught in an indecisive back and forth over what to do about it. Once you factor in all the coffee you have to buy, prices start to even out. Jjimjilbangs also don’t have any tourist info, or friendly hosts helping you figure stuff out, but the shower situation in the hostels is abysmal, and after spending all night dipping myself in massaging baths I really feel light and fluffy in the morning. Oh god. I hate making decisions.
Yesterday, by sheer luck, I made it onto a bus, from Gwangju, that arrived in Wando just fifteen minutes before that last ship of the day left for Jeju. That photo up there is me on the ship. My cab driver got me from the bus terminal to the port quickly, and I ran on board, desperately needing to pee. As I made my way up the stairs in search of the bathroom, two young girls in matching dresses, their hands linked, stopped me. They bore an eerie resemblance to a Korean version of the two girls from The Shining. The older of the two began to speak in slow and careful English, “Where are you going?” she said through a mouth that barely opened, with an even and blank expression on her face. I told her I needed the bathroom, and she lightly waved her hand, pointing me in the right direction. I locked myself into a stall and could see the girls hovering around outside. When I walked out they were both there, looking at me expectantly. “Finished?” she asked. Why, yes, and thank you for asking.
I sat down and pulled my hood over my head so I could take a nap. I woke up to find the girls sitting in the chair next to me, watching me sleep. “You’re very sleepy.” The older girl said. “Yes.” I said, and we moved into polite conversation, sharing our names and where we’re from, in slow, flawless English, her mouth opening only ever so slightly, facial expressions to a minimum. They had changed from their matching yellow floral dresses into matching pink floral dresses. I started wondering if maybe they weren’t girls at all. It seemed more plausible that they were in fact droids programmed to extract personal information from unwitting travelers in hopes of apprehending any spies on secret missions that could threaten the well being of the island, Jeju. I kept this in mind and was careful not to divulge too much, just in case I am, in fact, a droid programmed to believe that I’m an unwitting traveler, while actually being a spy on a secret mission to the island, Jeju. I spotted a Chihuahua in a handbag and pointed it out to her, thinking this is the kind of thing kids are impressed with. Her reaction was flat, and she asked me if I liked dog. I told her I did and then spent some time contemplating the double meaning of this question, as dog is the national dish of Korea. The boat docked and we parted ways without anything of great significance passing between us, but I’m left with the sneaking suspicion that she may have planted a microchip somewhere inside me while I was asleep.
If that’s the case, I’m hoping the benefit of the microchip goes both ways; she can have her information about me, and in exchange I’m linked into a matrix of tourist information that will guide me to exactly where I need to be, thus eliminating the decision making process, simplifying my life, and furthering a strengthened belief in magic.
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