Two Firsts

Last night I experienced two firsts. The first first was experienced mostly due to current sickness; I have another cold. It’s called a jimjilbong. Iowa and even Kansas City would do well to have one or more of these especially in the winter. A jimjilbong is basically a bathhouse. They have gender-specific areas containing several saunas, each set at varying temperatures and several pools, also set at varying temperatures. These jimjilbongs are usually open 24 hours, and so they also have these rows of little hotbeds that people sleep in.

My friend and I went first to the saunas. I wanted to sweat this thing out, so we went into one first, I think it was the 36C sauna. That wasn’t working fast enough, so we transferred to the 60C sauna and that did the trick. The first sauna had stone floors where we just sat and talked. The second had thousands of little pebbles as its floor, and there we sat, talked and sweat like whatever sweats a lot.

Next, we made our way through the big, open stone-floored common area where even whole families were sitting, eating snacks, talking, lounging in their provided sauna clothes, and we headed to the baths. I forget the order of different temperatures we plunged into, but this was quite relaxing and refreshing, especially having sat in a sauna for at least thirty minutes, all the while drenched in my own toxins.

After the baths we showered. It was great. Everything you need, which isn’t much, is provided: towels, sauna clothes and lockers with a key for your clothes, shoes, belongings, etc. I brought my own soap, but you can even buy little sample-sized items at the jimjilbong if you’d like. Will I go again? For sure; maybe even tonight.

My second first doesn’t demand as much description: I took a taxi home after the jimjilbong. Buses don’t run past 11PM, so unless I wanted to lose all that I’d gained in experiencing the jimjilbong and walk in the freezing cold on ice-clad sidewalks (Korea seems not to enact a snow removal system), I needed to take a taxi.

Taxis are very cheap here, so I never hesitate in that way, but there’s still that language barrier. Oh well, got over that, asked the driver if he could take me to Sinchang-dong (my neighborhood), he nodded, we tried to talk to each other during the 3-minute ride, I said, yogi (here) and he dropped me off within 1/4 of a block from my apartment having only racked up 2200 won for my fare (equivalent to 2 US dollars).

That’s it. I’m excited I’ve experienced both of those things now, and I feel empowered to do them again.