It’s easy to feel isolated working abroad. To attain full immersion, all social barriers must be broken down; and where better to dive into a new culture than at a Korean Spa?
With hundreds of naked bodies, awkwardness is fleeting. As the only foreigner in the spa, it’s easy to think all eyes are on you. But, exposed to such variety of flesh, self-consciousness leaks out as quickly as sweat.
The central hot tub is my first stop. The water is scalding and packed with dozens of birdlike bodies. I can’t smell chlorine and I pray for filters. I try to relax as my skin screams from the heat and I search the room for distraction.
I see hot-tub frog squats, gasping, cold-water dousing, sauna lunge stretches, and even a speedo-clad Korean masseur vigorously rubbing another naked man. The activities are so bizarre that my mind begins to slip into a surreal state, wherein the more I see soaked, dangling comb over’s and sagging elderly flesh, the more comfortable I feel.
With a head spinning lurch I stand and move to other pools. There is so much moisture in the air that condensation drips off the ceiling, as if the room itself is sweating.
I sit in a reclining Jacuzzi with probing jets. This is followed by the dirty-puddle looking Pine Sap Soak, and then the teakettle experience of the Green Tea Tub. When I finally stand my skin is crimson from the neck down and my muscles have melted to the consistency of tofu.
Bypassing clay tiles beneath heat lamps, where grown men sprawl completely exposed, I make my way to the Charcoal Bamboo Sauna. Thousands of burnt bamboo stubs are cemented into the walls and ceiling, creating the sensation of sitting in a pile of ashes. The aroma of charred wood sinks into my pores and will linger for days. I sit still, trying to breathe in the furnace air as withered Koreans do squats and triceps dips. By then their actions seem completely normal.
When I feel nauseous I decide to leave, but the next room offers no relief. Like the opium tents of the old Orient, the spa is hazy with steam, and I stagger in a daze. The room itself seems to gasp for air and I feel it pulling the oxygen straight from my dilated pores. I need to escape.
Clouded with steam, the door to the outdoor spa opens, and as my skin prickles from the chill, my lungs devour the cool, fresh air. I breathe deep, smelling pine and melting snow in the open air enclosure. I stand in the cold until the hot water looks inviting again, then slide in and let the goose bumps on my flesh slowly smooth out. I lean my head back and gaze at the twilight sky through a latticework of bamboo leaves. By now I could be anywhere. My inhibitions fade completely with the light and I drift into the oblivion of relaxation.
