South Korea apparently has the groundsprings of mineral water that are great for hot springs throughout the country. My Frommer’s guidebook sprinkled several of them throughout the options of things and places to visit during a Korean holiday, so I included one on my list of things to do and see while I’m in Pusan. In addition to being able to sit in the hot springs, there are opportunities for full-body exfoliation and massage treatments and sitting in saunas. For a relaxing vacation, a trip to the hot springs spa soundsedperfect, especially since the dollar is so much stronger than the Korean won. The only hitch: The norm here is to go naked. Hmmm….Well, when in Rome, right?
I got to the spa, which was about 45 minutes away from the apartment by subway, and checked in at the counter. Once I got to the locker room, I stripped down, hit the pre-hot spring cleansing showers, and joined 50 or so of my newest, closest friendly strangers to sit and enjoy the relaxing effects of the mineral waters.
As I stepped into the first pool, which was set to a balmy 33C (91.4F), I casually glanced around to get a sense of who was there. Most of the women were grandmother-age – maybe late 60s, early 70s, although there were some middle-aged women with children, and a few women who appeared to be in their 20s. They were all sitting comfortably in the waters around this huge room (there was a large pool in the middle of the room that was divided into three sections; that was surrounded by about 6 smaller pools throughout the rest of the room). Some were chatting with each other; some appeared to be sleeping. Everyone was naked.
It was at this point that I thought to myself (because I sure as hell couldn’t say this to anyone there, and I really wouldn’t want to talk to a naked stranger while I, too, was naked — even if we did speak the same language) that if there were facilities like this in America, there may be less of an obsession over weight and body image – because women of all shapes and sizes come to this spa. There were slim young women; older women with sagging breasts who had had children and had the stretch marks to prove it; women with large breasts and no bums; women with no breasts and large bums; women with thick thighs; women who were losing their hair; women who were so old they appear to be just skin and bones. Being surrounded by all these women without clothes, without makeup, without their hair styled, was both humbling and empowering. There was absolutely no way to be self-conscious in this environment, because everyone was operating on the same level: real woman, not idealized woman. I felt like I was in my very own Dove “real beauty” commercial.
OK, enough with the philosophizing. I was there to veg out, so I scoured the facility for the promised massage area. I stumbled upon an area on the upper level for mud baths and massages, and found three women, sitting and chatting, naked, by the massage tables. After gesturing at the menu of services, I was directed to hop onto one of the massage tables, and this skin-and-bones woman of 55 or so came up to me and started massaging my face and applying cucumber pulp. This, I thought, would be great – all natural ingredients, moisturizing cucumber mask, let the relaxing massage time be…wait, what’s that scratchy thing? Oh yeah, I’m getting the exfoliating massage – which I’ve never had before and I learn is done by using mittens that have the texture of sand paper, which are then rubbed up and down the body with some gritty exfoliating scrub. OK, I can handle this. I can definitely handle the warm-water rinse that’s tossed on me; jarring at first, but definitely pleasant.
What I couldn’t handle was the massage technique. This was no Swedish massage. This wasn’t even a deep tissue massage. This was a manipulate-the-foreigner’s-body-into-a-pretzel-and-beat-the-toxins-out-of-the-system massage. If you’ve never had one…I don’t recommend remedying that fact. There were times when this woman twisted my legs at angles that I swear would have popped knees and ankles out of joint had I attempted this on my own. There were times when this woman’s elbows/knuckles/heels/knees were dug so deeply into my back/shoulder/stomach that I thought I might just pass out from the pain. There were times when I found myself clutching at the sides of the table to relieve some of the tension in my body as I contracted muscles in reaction to the deep-tissue pounding my body was taking. At one point, I realized I was clutching the table because I was so slicked up with lotion I almost slipped off while flipping from stomach-to-back-to-stomach again; in fact, I was so lotioned-up that the woman was able to move my entire body by putting her forearm across my neck and tugging upward. This massage was anything but relaxing.
After being pummeled by a woman who could have been my grandmother, I headed back down to the hot springs and promptly hopped into the 45C (113F) pool, which felt like heaven. I spent the next 30 minutes trying out the different hot-spring pools, going from the salt bath to the grape bath to the jasmine bath to the outdoor air bath and ending up in the oak-wood sauna. Overall, despite the bruising massage, I fully enjoyed my afternoon at the hot springs spa.
Jarod asked if I have a movie for this trip. I told him Cocoon: sitting in those pools with all those older women reminded me of the scenes in Cocoon when the old people living in the retirement centers flocked to the pod-infested pools because of their rejuvenative effects. This was when I was reminded of the age gap, as both Jen and Jarod looked at me with blank expressions and asked, “What’s Cocoon?” *Sigh*
