The next morning we didn’t end up getting motivated right away. The hotel didn’t make us check out until 1pm, but we left around 11am. We headed to the only restaurant that served something other than seafood and shellfish. We went to a place called Tomarto Pizza, and ordered a combination pizza. We tried to get a beer but the owner shook his head and made an x with his arms, this didn’t make sense to us since there was a keg and a tap in the corner. Oh well, we had a bottle of coke with our pizza that was lacking sauce, the plastic table cloth was filthy, and there was a nail clipper sitting on the table we were sitting at, but the pizza was good. Having bread and cheese seems to be a rare thing in Korea. The funniest thing about this restaurant was that the only customers were white. There was a couple with a baby in a stroller who live in Korea 2 months out of the year and the other months in Cape Town, South Africa. And there was another couple that we didn’t speak to, but from the sound of it they were clearly from the US.
So after lunch we left the “lovely” beach town of Daechon, and took a taxi to the train station. Off to Daejeon! We took the KTX bullet train, made one train change and ended up in Daejeon about 2 hours later, which is considered the technology and science capital of Korea. After taking a taxi (they are very inexpensive in Korea) we meandered through the streets looking for a hotel, featured in our Lonely Planet guide as having a computer in the room! Great for updating our blog, which has become a novel! I hope it is interesting to read, gory details and all!!
The Limousine Motel is so far the nicest place we have stayed in Korea, maybe the whole trip, and it was only the equivalent of $50 USD. It had a huge flat screen TV, a computer, condoms, a large bath tub and shower (but no shower curtain, they don’t seem to use them here, they just let the entire bathroom get wet, great mold habitats!) water dispenser, UV sanitizer, and it was very big and clean, of course only a bottom sheet and comforter, so again I am very glad we bought the duvet at the market! Kyle and I updated the blog a little bit, and decided to head out to again find dinner!!! All we do is eat, but we love it!
The streets were again busy like they were in Seoul, which was refreshing after the ghost town of Daechon Beach! After walking around for a short time we passed a hospital, and many of the patients were outside walking around in their pj’s! They were smoking, playing video games, and just kind of outside. It was strange, they even wandered over two blocks from the hospital. Kyle and I found this Korean BBQ place, that I think is a chain, it has a big pig face as the sign and it was the second one we saw. Most Korean BBQ that we have had has been beef, but this was clearly a pork place, my mom and Anthony Bourdain would have been in heaven! Again we had trouble ordering, but were able to communicate that we wanted the “pork steak” the owner called it and some beer and soju! At most restaurants we noticed that the customers just shout out if they want something, and most times they want more soju. The owner brought over the usual side dishes, and heated up the grill in the center of our table. He rubbed a piece of pork fat on the grill, added many different cuts of pork, and some large mushrooms along with spicy bean sprouts, later he added hunks of garlic to the grill as well. Then he left us to grill the meat ourselves. Since Kyle is color blind, so he uses that as an excuse for me to cook since he can’t tell if it’s pink or not. After the pork was done we put it in lettuce leafs and ate it with the bean sprouts and sauce. Then we noticed another table was having rice on their grill, so we ordered some of that as well. The waitress came over and prepared the “fried” rice with our left over pieces of pork, she added kimchi, bean sprouts, lettuce, and oil to the rice, and it was very yummy! This was my second favorite meal in Korea so far. After dinner we decided to try a Korean bath house. This is unlike the seedy bathhouses found in the US. It seems to be a big part of their culture to go to the bath, and soak the stresses of the day away. The only thing is they all do it completely nude! Both Kyle and I were unsure as to how this is traditionally done, and since there are separate facilities for men and women we would have to navigate it alone. It was around 10pm on a Sat. night, and the place was very busy, this bath “Magic 24” is open 24 hours a day.
Right when we walked in, we were given a key on a little bracelet and pointed in separate directions. We would have to figure it out on our own from here! Fortunately I read a little bit about the baths in our guide book, but Kyle didn’t really know the drill. When you first walk in you have to find the locker with your key number on it, this is a small locker for your shoes only. Kyle later told me that he thought he was suppose to get naked right there and put all his clothes in the locker, but his shoes barely fit, he said he finally figured it out. I knew that the shoes had a separate locker, but the numbers confused me a bit. The women’s side seemed to be nicer than the men’s. We had an area where we could buy bath products and another area where women were sitting around naked watching K-dramas. I decided to get it over with and headed to my numbered locker. I stripped down put my hair up, grabbed the towels that the attendant handed to me, and set off in search of the bath. I found a door that said sauna on it, so I went in assuming it was just the sauna, but no! I opened the door to a large room with three large round hot tubs in the middle, showers along two of the walls, and then two other pools that were high off the ground than the middle tubs. I knew I needed to wash before getting into the baths, so I went over to one of the more secluded stand-up showers. There were sit down showers that had little stools and buckets and mirrors. The standup shower had a mirror as well, so while I washed I observed what the other women were doing, so as not to stand out even more then I already did with my blondish hair and lack of a large mass of pubic hair, I had gotten a wax for the trip! Not only did I feel awkward naked, but I was the only white person there, and people stare at me on the streets when I am fully clothed so I could just imagine how much staring was going on now that I was naked! I kept wondering what it was like for Kyle. Luckily we had said we would meet up in an hour. I tried out the different bath temperatures, and tried to talk to two nice ladies, who asked if I was an English teacher, and told me I was beautiful. I was getting a little bored, so I decided to check out the rest of the women’s side. I ended up buying a few body scrubs, and hair tonic thing, this was the first time I ever shopped naked!
I also found it to be quite interesting how all the older women were sitting at the showers with the stools and were scrubbing down the younger girls with a cloth. There were not just washing them but they were spending some quality time on the scrubbing.
(Kyle) So for me the experience was probably a little more disorienting than Angy’s. When I first walked in there were lockers all over as soon as you walk in, so I assumed that this is where you were supposed to put your stuff in. So I found my locker and put my shoes in. Well, my shoes didn’t really even fit in there so I thought that this must not be it. But then as I started looking around I noticed that beyond the point of the lockers there were no men with clothes on. So I shrugged my shoulders and figured that since Asian men are a little smaller than I am they are probably able to fit everything in the locker.
I decided that I couldn’t fit everything in there with my shoes, so I put them on top where no other Asian man could probably reach. I then took my shirt off and started to fold it. As soon as I saw that someone came up right away and handed me my shirt, stuffed my shoes in my locker and pointed me into the other direction. It seems that down the other hallway are normal sized lockers for all your belongings. That would have been quite a sight to see me trying to stuff everything into that little locker.
So I got naked and locked up my stuff in the locker and started to walk out of the locker area. Unfortunately I can’t read Korean so I was not quite sure as to where to go next. All I knew was that I needed to shower before I got into the hot tubs and saunas. So I was walking around and I caught the eye of a younger kid there and played the odds that he spoke a little English. So I asked him, “Shower?” thankfully he replied that it was through the door to my left.
I walked through the door and there were two different types of showers. There were stand up showers and then there were sit down showers with little plastic stools. I decided that I definitely was going to the stand up shower. Although I have noticed that in the hotels we’ve stayed at the showers don’t curtains and the shower head is connected to a hose that you can pull off. So I can see how this would seem completely normal for them to sit down and shower.
Understandably, I felt a little bit out of my element so I pretty much made a bee line for the closest hot tub. Not too bad for temperature, it was a mild 32 ° Celsius. I sat in there feeling a little uncomfortable because I came alone and everyone else obviously came with a friend or relative and of there is the problem of where to look. There were naked men and boys everywhere so you could really focus on one point too long without making eye contact. Then when I did what was I to say? Hi, how are you, I’m a big silly American in a Korean bath house, it’s nice to meet you. Yea, definitely not.
I felt the other pools around me and found one that was really warm, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Wow! That is exactly what I said too. Freaking hot!! 42.5° Celsius. I am not sure but I think that it’s equivalent to about 110° Fahrenheit. I got in all the way and sat there for what seemed like 3 or 4 minutes but realistically was only about 40 seconds. From there I moved into the sauna. It wasn’t too bad at first. Of course after being in there for 10 minutes, two young kids came in and tried to have a conversation with me. They didn’t speak hardly any English and the conversation consisted of the usual, “where are from?”, “How old are you?”, and “Are you an English teacher?”
I actually enjoying trying to communicate with people, but after drinking beer and soju just the hour before and having been in the hot box for near 20 minutes I was starting too not feel so good. The boys were still trying to think of questions to ask me and I didn’t want to seem rude. But I had to go. I mean what’s worse, saying goodbye while someone “might” be asking you a question or passing out in the sauna. Easy decision.
I then jumped into another hot tub that seemed too have different water than the others. Still a good temperature, but I was feeling like it was time too go. I am pretty sure that I was ready to go back to the room. But of course things don’t always work out the way that we want them too. There just happened to be another white guy that walked in and I was watching him with some other guy. They were showering before the sauna and the other guy finished brushing his teeth and then handed it to the white guy, he of course refused and looked like he was saying that he had one in the locker. That was kind of funny to watch.
But then he saw me and made a beeline over too talk to me. He said that he had been here for two weeks and had only seen two other “westerners”. He told me his life story and asked me a few questions. Nothing too interesting, I just really wanted to get out of there. So I eventually found a good excuse and headed out.
I met Angy outside in the lobby, paid for our stuff and headed back to the room. The night was just about over. It had been a long couple of days and we really needed to relax so the sauna was quite nice. We stopped on the way back to the hotel and bought some wine, soju, beer, and a few snacks for the night. We figured we would give the wine and soju to the couple whose house we would be staying at the next day.
(Angy) We ended up just going back to our “love” motel and watching a little TV and then off to bed. We wanted to go hiking the next morning, and then it was off to the farm!
