Bathing naked

One of the things korean is famous for (or infamous for depending on how you feel about it) is its public baths, or jjimjilbang (찜질방) in korean. This past week I had the opportunity to go to one in Busan. When I first heard of them, I thought there was no way I could go to one. But since I've been adjusting to the Korean lifestyle I was willing to try it out. The jjimjilbang was inside of a mall type building on the third floor, which I thought was kind of weird. The first thing you do when you walk in is take off your shoes at the entrance and put them in a shoe locker. One side is for boys and one side for girls. The lockers are free and you take the key with you to the front counter. At the counter you can then choose to either pay for just using the baths, or for using the entire jjimjilbang. Its about 8$ for the whole thing and $5 for just the baths, or somewhere around that. You give them your shoe locker key and then they give you another locker key that has a wristband. And if you paid full price they give you a shirt and pair of shorts. Then the guys and girls separate to different bathing areas. First you go to a locker area and undress and put all your things in your assigned locker. So now you are basically naked. And there are other naked people around you. It was weird. Then you can go into the bathing area. If you want to, there are also shaving razors and toothbrushes to purchase. On the way into the bathing area you grab a scrubbing towel and first go to the showers to scrub yourself with soap. Then there are various baths you can go in. Well, it was really weird just walking in all naked, and then seeing a room full of naked men of various ages, old to young. And of course I'm the only non-korean. First I went into what was basically a large jacuzzi. I was able to get over the anxiety/weirdness of being fully naked in front of other people. Just like everything else in society, if everyone else does it then it becomes normal and accepted. Being naked was actually kind of... fulfilling. You just feel a lot of freedom. Like when you were a kid and ran around naked all the time. After the jacuzzi, I went into a tea bath. Some days it is green tea, and other days like the day I went it was barley tea (I think). The water definitely looked kind of shady (there was brown stuff floating around in it) but I thought maybe it was the tea stuff? Better not to think about it... Then I went into this other super hot tub. Yea, it was really hot. This one was special because the tub was made with some kind of special Japanese wood or something like that, I forget the name. Next to it is a cold bath. Its supposedly good for your skin to switch between the hot and cold baths a few times. Definitely it was refreshing. Because it was on during the holidays, the jjimjilbang was actually not very crowded. And there was this young kid, maybe 13, who was by himself and he kept staring at me. So I stared back and then started talking to him in korean. It was kind of cool being able to just become friends with someone so easily even if he was just a kid(and funny because we were both naked).
Once you've had enough of bathing, you go to another area where there are sit-down shower stalls. Its a bit odd sitting on a stool naked. But anyway theres a removable showerhead and you rinse down. Then you grab the soap and scrub (which you arent the first one to use...) and scrub yourself down. This is the point where if you are with friends or something you can scrub their back and wherever else you want to scrub...
Thats the end of the bathing area. I then walked out, grabbed a hand towel to dry down and went back to my locker. Now is when you put on the clothes they gave you if you paid the full price. They were pretty comfortable actually, I liked them. After that I headed downstairs. In this area since everyone is clothed (and all the clothing is the same) both guys and girls can go. When you first walk down, there is a big open area where people can sit and talk or lay down. Along one wall are various rock igloo type looking structures. These are basically various types of saunas. Some are super hot, some are hot, and some are just warm. First we went into a hot one for about 10 minutes and came out with a good sweat. Then we took a break and got some juice. I had freshly made pinapple juice, it was pretty good. One of the people I was with got a peach drink, and it was in one of those pitcher containers where the lid has a hole in it that you can cover. Kind of interesting that they would give it to you in that, but I guess so they could put a lot of ice? Anyway then we went to the super hot room. It was seriously like an oven. After being in there for 15 minutes my shirt was soaked in sweat. To finish off we then went to the warm room in which the walls were gold and silver. Its also possible to stay over night in jjimjilbangs. Most of them are open 24 hours and have blankets and places to sleep. Some also have a karaoke room, a pc room, and a movie room.