Jim Jill BONG

This was all before chuesok I just didn't write about it until now. I don't have a korean key board on my laptop but there is something in this country called a jim jill bong. That is exactly how you say it. Some of you might be familiar with these but only by word of mouth or internet research because we don't have them in the U.S.A. Another name for a jim jill bong would be a "public bath house." Yes, I went. My buddy scott took me. It was quite the experience. First you walk in and there is a room with a desk. You get a key for a shoe locker, then go into the next room and give the shoe key to another guy behind another desk. You give him 5,000 (or $5 bucks) and then money for anything else you want. EX: tooth brush and shampoo. You walk through an opaque glass door to reveal the "meat" of the operation. about 50 random korean guys buck naked walking around from sinks to toilets to lockers and everything in between. Now I have obviously never done this before but my friend scott has been here for 3 years and even though born in the u.s.a is a korean himself...So I followed him around the entire time. There is system to the jim jill bong for ultimate relaxation. First to the lockers to free yourself from the ties that bind. Then through another set of doors that reveal more naked men and an amazing number of jacuzzi looking pools right in front of you, stand up showers to your left and rows and rows of sit down showers to the right. First you are expected to take a shower with communal soap to rid you of your sweat and etc. Just like a pool back home. Then you put your stuff in a basket and leave it in a spot, in my case it was my tooth brush. After I followed my naked friend into the first of the many jacuzzi's. Different people do different orders of pools but I wasn't about to make up my own plan. It's like trying to create football plays and never even having watched a game before. Into the first tub. The hottest one of them all, I knew this because the temperature was there in celcius to tell us what temperature we were cooking in. Then to the next one, a little bit cooler in temp. After that we went into a tiled tub with about 5 chairs built into the tub's wall. These had strong jets in them. You sit down and the water comes up to your neck and you put your back against the jets. This one was just warm and VERY VERY wonderful. Scott and I sat there for about 10-15 mins talking about the previous night and who went where with who and how awesome the rock show was at that really cool bar around that really cool university. Time to exit the massage chair. Into the first of the sauna's...and of course the hottest one of them all. We stayed there for a little bit with a bunch of sweaty, and of course naked, asian dudes. Apparently it's o.k to most things in there so while i'm hanging out this random guy let the loudest fart I have ever heard go. I looked around to see if anyone was bothered by it but hey, it's a mans place. This was o.k, I was at home. After that we walked to an outside area. You had to see this it was so amazing. There was a typhoon in town for the last week so needless to say it was still rainy and foggy. There were two small tubs...but that wasn't the nice part. Over the chest high wall were two mountains covered in low lying fog. That combined with the rain and everything else was just breath taking. I looked around realized where I was and what the scenary was around me that thought escaped me. We sat down in the first of the tubs. It was not hot at all, very cool to the touch. It was dark water, scott informed me that it was water straight from a spring on the mountain that had salt put into it from a tank. Unfortunately we couldn't see the mountain from our sitting position. It would have been nice to have lower walls but then when the guys stood up out of the tub there would be people staring and taking pictures from across the way. I realized the need for the high walls. Two way glass would be nice...the kind they have at the police stations in the interigation rooms. Anyway, we sat in there and when we were done we went into the "salt room." It's exactly what it sounds like. A huge room with walls covered in salt and a big wooded bucket of salt in the middle. You rub the salt all over. I was saying something about how crazy the room was and then immediatly after asked if you were suppose to put it everywhere. Scott said "yeah" so I put the salt on my face. Right after that he said "no." Apparently he was saying yeah to what I said before my question..but told me it didn't matter really. So now I am standing there in a suit of salt on my way back into the first of the hot sauna. I figure it out immediatly why you shouldn't put it on your face. As soon as I started sweating again my eyes were burning from the salt dripping form my forhead into my eyes. My buddy scott started cracking up as I was saying OW! and so were the other asian guys. I told him to go screw himself and I ran to one of the showers and washed my face off. I went back into the sauna a min. later and the old guys were still laughing and def. thinking "silly foreigner." I didn't mind, it was a cruel joke but still funny. After that room it was basically jacuzzi jumping for another 15 mins followed by another shower with this exfoliating wash cloth thing. It was a nice end to a previous night of drinking and a morning of relaxation. When we finished up we we back into the room with the lockers, redressed and drank a whole shit load of water from the cooler they had. Packed up and left. I have been looking for a Jim Jill bong around me for the last week. I am motivated to find one. Been nice talking to me, peace!