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In the upper-right corner you can see the word "Spaland" |
In
Busan there is the biggest public bathhouse in Korea. I can't go into
too much detail, but public bathhouses are pretty cool places.
This
one costs about $12 I think, but most cost around $8. At many you can
stay as long as you like (even overnight), though this one had a 4 hour
time limit. There are sort of two areas in the bathhouse: the bath area
and everyplace else.
Naked Area
In
the bath area everyone is naked (yeah, weird) but it is gender
separated. This one was big and beautiful. It had several different hot
tubs with different temperatures. They say that there are two kinds of
spring water there "Sodium Bicarbonate" and "Sodium Chloride."
There
were several water massage beds (hard to explain, with I had a picture
to show you, but then there would be old naked men in the picture...).
Then there was a "cool bath" and a "cold bath" (15C, freezing cold).
I've heard that Koreans sometimes alternate between cold and hot, and I
did that and it felt awesome.
In that area there were
also 3 saunas. A "Korean" sauna, a "Roman" sauna (as in ancient Rome),
and two Finnish saunas. The hotter of the two Norwegian ones was 80
degrees Celsius (176F)! You can see sauna culture briefly in the Gangnum
Style video.
Non-Naked Area
In
the rest of this place you are clothed in these special relax clothes,
and in these areas it's co-ed. There are MANY more and different saunas
including but not limited to:
Yellow Earth Room
Pyramid Room
Body Sound Room
Wave-Dream Room
Hard Wood Charcoal Room
Hamam Room
Bali Room
SEV Room
Body
Sound Room was funny. You listen to sounds of nature or meditation
music and the music sooth-fully vibrates where you are laying down.
The
Wave-Dream Room is where they have a little bit of water with a light
under it, so the rippling water is projected on the ceiling.
Cool stuff. Loved it.
"Entertainment Zone"
In
addition to the saunas in the non-naked area, they also had some cool
stuff. Including a "Relaxation Room," a restaurant, and a cafe.
In the Relaxation Room you get a nice big recliner and a tv. It's pretty dark so you could also nap in there. Cool digs.
The
food as you can imagine was quite expensive. But no wallets allowed! So
how do you pay? At the beginning of the experience you are issued a
special electronic key for your locker that goes around your wrist. But
it can also pay for things! Even vending machine food! How cool is that?
They
also had an area where you could get into pods with lots of extra
oxygen, an oxygen bar more or less. I would have done it, but I was
running out of time.
I saw a bunch of people hanging out with friends just watching tv. I couples resting together in the nap-time area.
These places are to get away from the hustle of city life that so many people deal with. Honestly, I think we should have something like it to. If only because it is so awesome (though I doubt in the States it would have the same cheap price).