Spa Land in Busan, South Korea23 August 2010
If our sources are correct, Spa Land is the biggest spa in Asia, and a pretty unique place to find your inner calm while sweating the demons out of your system. Having never been to a public spa/bath like this, Devin and I really didn’t know what to expect. Was it like a spa at home, with loads of private massage rooms, where you pick what type of service you’ll have; deep tissue or hot stone? Or would it be a giant pool where people of all shapes and sizes bathed? As it turned out, there was a bit of everything!
Before entering the spa we deposited our shoes into a locker and collected our spa attire, what I like to call “hobbit wear.” We then parted ways to change in our respective locker rooms before meeting again to explore the place – we had four hours.
Our first stop was an outdoor hot water foot bath. All around this relaxing “patio” there were nice stone pools filled with different temperatures of water about shin-deep. We stood and watched people wading around and once we realized that’s all they were doing we quickly followed suit. The water was hot and took some time to get used to; it wasn’t long before our feet cooled from bright red to pretty pink and we could walk in the water without looking like we were about to cry.
After subjecting our feet to hot temperatures we returned inside to learn that the majority of the spa was dedicated to saunas, some as hot as the sun. There were roughly 15 saunas, each with a unique design and temperature, including a few heated to around 64.5 ◦C and an “ice room” to shock you back to your senses at 19.5 ◦C. We made the rounds and found we liked the hottest best. Our MO was to lay down and sweat (I’m talking soaked hobbit clothes) for 10 minutes and then hurry over to the ice room for 5 minutes in order to shock our bodies back to life. It was so much fun!
Spa Land is not limited to saunas and foot baths. There are many quiet relaxation rooms with sleeping pads, a yoga studio, a massage spa, a hair and nail salon, a DVD room where you can sit in a recliner and watch a movie on a personal TV, a café, and best of all (in my opinion), the baths.
Connected to each locker room is a bathing area – one for men, one for women. These are huge spaces with different temperature pools in which to soak. Around the outside of the bathing room are showers (both standing showers and showers that you sit at), and before entering the pools you’d better shower, and before showering you’d better disrobe. For me, this was a mental battle; New Experience vs. Self Consciousness. I looked around – I was the only white women in a room of about 200 Asian women (it was a BIG area.) I’ve gotten used to being a minority while in Asia, but not a naked minority. After what felt like hours, but was only a few minutes, I made peace with my body and joined the bathing women. Refreshing!! It was an amazing feeling – like being free from an idea that weighs you down day after day. I felt the best I had in a long time while we were at that spa – not because I was getting a muscle-melting massage, but because I felt like I’d sweat off and washed away layers of the deep-rooted self-consciousness I carry with me. It was fabulous!
Devin's comment about the experience? “Hairy.”
If our sources are correct, Spa Land is the biggest spa in Asia, and a pretty unique place to find your inner calm while sweating the demons out of your system. Having never been to a public spa/bath like this, Devin and I really didn’t know what to expect. Was it like a spa at home, with loads of private massage rooms, where you pick what type of service you’ll have; deep tissue or hot stone? Or would it be a giant pool where people of all shapes and sizes bathed? As it turned out, there was a bit of everything!
Before entering the spa we deposited our shoes into a locker and collected our spa attire, what I like to call “hobbit wear.” We then parted ways to change in our respective locker rooms before meeting again to explore the place – we had four hours.
Connected to each locker room is a bathing area – one for men, one for women. These are huge spaces with different temperature pools in which to soak. Around the outside of the bathing room are showers (both standing showers and showers that you sit at), and before entering the pools you’d better shower, and before showering you’d better disrobe. For me, this was a mental battle; New Experience vs. Self Consciousness. I looked around – I was the only white women in a room of about 200 Asian women (it was a BIG area.) I’ve gotten used to being a minority while in Asia, but not a naked minority. After what felt like hours, but was only a few minutes, I made peace with my body and joined the bathing women. Refreshing!! It was an amazing feeling – like being free from an idea that weighs you down day after day. I felt the best I had in a long time while we were at that spa – not because I was getting a muscle-melting massage, but because I felt like I’d sweat off and washed away layers of the deep-rooted self-consciousness I carry with me. It was fabulous!
Devin's comment about the experience? “Hairy.”
;)
The End.
The End.
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