We took the train down to Busan this afternoon and spent the rainy evening indoors at Spa Land, which is the biggest Korean spa in all of Korea. My only experience with a Korean spa before this was at Spa Castle in Queens when my Korean-obsessed friend wanted us to check it out. Korean spas are unique to other spas in that in the bath area, everyone strips down nude and doesn’t wear even bathing suits. This makes a lot of Westerners uneasy, so many don’t try these when visiting Korea. This spa has multiple baths at different temperatures, as well as a variety of different saunas at different temperatures, gaming room, individual treatment rooms, a cafe, and restaurant. It’s all paid for via a little “key” scanner that is attached to a bracelet you wear while going through.
The one treatment I was interested in getting was the full body scrub — someone of your same sex will bring you into a room and hand scrub you down with exfoliator pads for a time ranging from ten to forty minutes. In previous reviews, I’ve read that it’s like getting a full layer or two of skin removed from your body; this is how obsessed Koreans are with cleanliness. So why not try it out while I am here?
The experience was one of the strangest ones I’ve had. After indicating that I wanted the 20-minute full body scrub with facial mask treatment, I was guided into a room (by a middle-aged Korean woman wearing only a lacy black bra and underwear) with what looked like six beds wrapped in plastic, making them waterproof. On beds were fully naked women of all sizes, lying on their backs or stomachs getting scrubbed. The naked women lying on their backs had dark green and cucumber mixed masks on their faces, and buckets and buckets of warm water were being thrown on them everywhere. The entire room was wet, wet, wet! It really looked like an autopsy room at a hospital, yet instead of corpses lying on the stretchers, these were all breathing women hoping to be scrubbed squeaky clean and treated to a bath done by someone other than themselves and their mothers. It seemed almost machine like, the work these “ajummas” as they call them were doing.
The ajumma working on me had a gentle touch on my face as she gently massaged my pressure points and spread the cucumber mask all over my face. But, when it came to scrubbing, she was not gentle at all. She scrubbed everything, everywhere — all over my breasts and chest, my legs, my butt, the heels of my foot, and — wow — even around my crotch and between my butt cheeks. This is one of those “only in Korea” experiences because I’m not sure what other country would provide a bath for you like this. Even when I did a Turkish bath and pretty much got body slammed on the waterproof bed I was on — the guy cleaning me did not get anywhere near my crotch. At the end of my 20 minutes, she held my hand and led me off the bed, and she lightly bowed her head and said thank you in Korean. I responded and said thank you to her, too, and bowed my head… and I suddenly realized this was the only time in my entire life I’d ever thanked anyone in person while completely naked.
Afterwards, I relaxed in one of the hot baths surrounded by many other Korean women, all either socializing with friends or on their own, probably after work, hoping to unwind from a long day at the office. I thought about how strange it would be to be naked in a hot bath with my female colleagues back at home if this were part of our culture. I could never imagine that happening, ever.
Then, I rejoined Chris in the meeting room to prepare for the saunas, which are for both sexes. He appeared relaxed and clean and had a stunned look on his face. “I don’t think I’ve ever been bathed by anyone since I was a child — and that was by my dad! He even scrubbed around my penis!”