Going Naked

As I might have mentioned before, living in Korea, you lose your sense of wonder about anything around you (as you do any place, I suspect). You become accustomed to not understanding anything anyone says, being pushed around in a huge crowd of people, and still being surprised every time you see "one of your own." Then again, sometimes events (or people, as in this case) push you to really see what's around you, to once again enjoy your surroundings and yes, even be pleasantly surprised.

Sini, my friend from Finland whom I met in Vietnam, has been here visiting for the past week. It's so strange: even walking through the streets that I see every day has become a new experience. I've learned to see things through new eyes, to taste food differently, and (holy crap) even be much more polite to people.

This weekend, we went on the KTX (Korea's super-fast train) 2.5 hours to Busan, way in the south of Korea.

Busan (often Romanized into Pusan) is right along the coast, with its own metro and everything. Sini and I found a really great hotel seaside with an amazing view for only $70 (normally $120). It was raining and we were nearly blown away by the hurricane-like winds. So we took a nap in our hotel room with only the sound of the waves.

After, we found a nice restaurant nearby with really great sashimi and about 100 side dishes.

Strong waves knocking kids over.

Haeundae beach.

Then we decided to try our hand at the sauna/jjimjilbang. I haven't been comfortable enough to walk around naked with perfect strangers, but Sini really wanted to go to compare it to the Finnish sauna, so I thought now was as good a time as ever.

We walked into the building and got off the elevator on the wrong floor. We started entering a room when there it was: a big tattoo on a Korean man's butt. Oh. This must be the MEN'S floor. Woops. So then we went down one more flight of stairs to the main counter to pay and go to the WOMEN'S sauna. We paid our $6 and were on our way.

The main problem we had was that there are no instructions for this sauna. We got our towels, took off our clothes and walked into a huge room with about 6 different pools and about 70-80 naked Korean women of all ages. Ok, now what? It's probably best that we take a shower. So we walked over to the showers where one of the scrubbing ajummas in a bra and panties (signaling they work there) came and handed us stools to sit on and bowls. We sat down and turned on the shower but...no soap. We tried to look as helpless as possible so someone would help us and sure enough, a really kind older women brought us her shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and loofah. We thanked her kindly and scrubbed away.

Then, in the center of the room were three huge hot baths with women lounging along the side and soaking. We learned the hard way that you're supposed to start in the coolest one and work your way up to the hottest. After the initial stares (I have 5 tattoos and I'm white), we all got used to each other and Sini and I could relax. Since I was a newbie, I couldn't go to any of the other hot baths. Then we went to a cooler bath on the side that has built-in chairs with really powerful jets of water (which are incredibly difficult to stay on). After a while, we went to the sauna rooms. My medical condition prevented me from the really hot ones and only allowed a 5-minute stay in the least hot one.

Then we decided we wanted to put the scrubbing ajummas to work. It was unfortunate that we couldn't understand each other. She thought we hadn't washed at all yet and was asking her what to do. We thought she was telling us to get out of there as soon as possible. We tried to explain that we had already washed and wanted only the scrubbing (oh yes. You can pay someone to actually scrub your entire body). A discussion ensued in which none of us understood anyone else. As you can imagine, this wasn't the quietest conversation so the entirety of the spa room stopped what they were doing and began staring with amused looks on their faces. A woman went and bought us all of the toiletries we needed, which was indeed very nice, but we left them and moved on.

After the naked part, you're given a nice loose shirt and shorts to wear to go to the 6th floor jjimjilbang, which is a communal area. We saw people sleeping, eating, taking sauna, and playing on computers. We opted for the DVD room, where we watched the new Die Hard movie on a sleeping mat on a heated floor.
We took a taxi back to the hotel and went to bed, satisfied with our first Korean sauna experience.

The next day was again overcast, but not as rainy, so we went to Beomeosa Temple on the complete opposite end of the metro. It was quite beautiful.

A street on our way.

A pillar with old Korean writing.

One of the guardians in the gate.

An old tree surrounded by bamboo.

Black and white makes everything look classier...even if it seems impossible.

Wall, Beomeosa.

Tile on the roof.

Stairs at Beomeosa.

Tower.

Temple buildings.

Beomeosa/mountains.

Some of the trees were really cool, with leaves that were shaped like fire.

The pictures pretty much say it all. Of course none of the Buddhist temples here are exactly the same, but they seem to run together. The best part, for me, was being where the air was so clean and getting away from the noise of Seoul. The temples are always so peaceful, usually with only the sounds of chanting around. Most of the buildings were quite old, though I tried to be respectful and not take pictures of the ones being worshipped in.

After, we had a very nice lunch near the subway station, then headed to Busan Station to catch our evening KTX. The view was quite beautiful on the ride back.

So if you read this, Sini, then thank you for helping me get my wonder back. And giving me the courage to go naked in front of 80 strangers.