Unfortunately/fortunately I had to wait depending on how you were looking at it. I woke up to some messages from Dr. Rhee wanting to meet for lunch around 11:30am. I happily obliged as he suggested we go to Mies Kitchen on campus which is famous for spaghetti and pizza. I'm of course eternally skeptical of anything that Korean's call "pizza" even if it's the "Giant Monster Pizza" that I saw and now HAVE to try.
Anyways, 11:30 rolled around and I met Dr. Rhee outside of the International dorm. He picked me up and we headed to Mies. After ordering he asked me about the other RA's. Heavy G was still at the dorm but the other two are at home. I didn't realize he wanted the other RA's to join, so I quickly called Heavy G and he rushed over to have lunch with our boss.
He had ordered a pan pizza, some pasta, and two servings of chicken for us. Heavy G got there right as we were getting our food. I didn't take any pictures of our food out of respect for Dr. Rhee, but I did get an interesting picture of a wonderful photo on the wall of Mies. See if you can pick out which one I'm talking about.
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| Part of Mies' art |
After eating at Mies we headed to the cafeteria across from the college of rehabilitation (where Heavy G goes). They both wanted coffee, and since I don't drink coffee I got a vitamin water. We sat around and discussed my future in Korea. They're working on figuring out job options for me since I'm currently not being paid. I'm confident that God will provide for me, and I'm continually praying for that. If you would all add your prayers to that I would be eternally grateful.
Dr. Rhee, being the busy man he is, had to take off after about 20 minutes and Heavy G and I headed back to the dorm. We decided to rest up and wait for Heavy G to get his new tablet delivered before taking off. Unfortunately the delivery guy was about an hour and a half late. I didn't mind, I wasn't even sure if we were still going to the bathhouse at that point.
Well guess what? We were! The delivery man came and Heavy G asked if I was ready to go. Of course! Can't back out now! Lets get this on. He drove us through the back gate of the school and into a pretty nice area of our county called 영천 (Yeong Cheon). He even pointed out a house that his family wanted to move into before he became a student at Daegu University, pretty cool stuff! After about 30 min of driving we pulled into the mountain spa.
Welp here we go! Obviously I couldn't get any pictures in there, but I can do my best to describe it. As you walk in there are food vendors on each side of the door selling 오뎅 (Oh Deng) or fried fish cakes. Directly through the doors on your right is the desk where you pay. It's 6,500 won (about $6.50) per person to get in. After paying you walk up the stairs to the right of the desk. The women have their spa on the upper floor. We walk into the men's only locker room and immediately take off our shoes. Socks are ok as you walk across the wood into what looks like a giant YMCA locker room with nice wooden lockers on your left, and massage chairs on your right. Further down the pathway there are barber chairs on the right for haircuts.
We find our assigned lockers and this is where I am finally and truly informed this place is all nude. I do my best not too be outwardly surprised, even though I somewhat knew what to expect going in. Hey I grew up in hockey locker rooms my entire life, but I wasn't usually the only white dude. Being a giant also tends to draw eyes to you. I'm used to it at this point so I just did my best to enjoy my time there. I'm sure everyone was doing the same.
After taking off our clothes we went through a door at the end of that originally pathway and into the bathhouse. There were 4 pools of differing sizes directly in front of us, personal spaces to shower to the right, stand up showers against the wall behind and to the left of us, and a pool against the left wall. There were also sauna's against the far wall, and in the back right corner massage tables where you could get scrubbed down. Between the stand up showers and the pool there was also a path leading outside to the outdoor bath. It was raining a bit today so I figured we wouldn't be doing that.
We started with a standup shower before hopping in the largest of the hot tubs that was in front of us when we walked in. This was your typical hot tub and felt good. Heavy G seemed to be a bit ADD about this and after a few minutes asked if I wanted to try going outside. I was down to try all the stuff so we went out and into the pool outside. There were actually two pools but we went into the hot tub which was more of a warm tub. This was really really relaxing and nearly the perfect temperature but it started raining a little harder and Heavy G had had enough.
Back inside we went and we had to decide what to do next standing basically in the middle of the room with what felt like everyone else watching us. We ended up going into the sauna. One was 57 degrees Celsius and had a blue light to make it look like it was cooler, and the other was 75 degrees Celsius. This one of course had a red light to let you know it was super duper stupid hot. I have to admit it was hard to breathe in this room. I wanted out after about 2 minutes, and Heavy G was all to happy to join. Right outside was a rain shower where you pressed a button and ice water rained down on you from above. Welp, now or never right?! I was definitely awake at this point if I hadn't been before.
We hopped over to the regular pool and man it felt like heaven. After a few minutes of getting my lower back massaged by some wall jets, I started to feel a bit cold. Heavy G also agreed so we hopped back in the original hot tub. I was happy to chill here for awhile, but ADD G wanted to go get his neck massaged in the pool again so he did that while I stayed in the hot tub. After a few more minutes he asked if I was ready to go. I was getting a bit hot in the hot tub so I was good with that.
It was time to hit the personal showers and really scrub down. This was the place to wash everything, shave, brush your teeth, whatever you needed. After that we went back to the standup showers and washed our bodies. All in all I think I took 6 showers, and hit at least 5 different pools of water. We went back into the locker room and dried off. There were free cue-tips and hair gel to use. Then we got our clothes back on and headed out.
It was raining outside and Heavy G was pretty unhappy. He even tried to get me to have some fish cakes outside under a canopy instead of walking 50 feet to his car. I had to break his heart and let him know I wasn't hungry yet. We walked through the (sprinkling) POURING rain to his car and headed to the market for some of Heavy G's signature post bathhouse banana milk.
I've never had banana milk, though I could guess exactly what it tasted like. Something I really could go without, but farbeit from me to bust a guy's chops too many times in a short period. (Ok I do but Heavy G is sensitive). We downed the banana milk together as we headed back to the dorm, and Heavy G asked what I wanted for dinner. He had settled on Sam Gyup Sal and I was down with that. I tried to get him to throw in some Cha Dol Bagi for good measure, but he said it was impossible.
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| Sam Gyup Sal! |
After getting back to the dorm Heavy G called for Sam Gyup Sal delivery. We went through it pretty quickly and it was really good. After enjoying ourselves, I had to excuse myself to write the insurmountable blog content I had piled up and here I am about 4 hours later putting the finishing touches on the last one for the night. Thanks again for joining in guys! I look forward to sharing tomorrow with you! Should be another exciting one. Good night!
Korean Word/Phrase of the Day: 한국에서 중국까지 얼마나 걸려요? (Han Guk Eh Seo Joong Guk Gga Ji Eol Ma Na Keol Lyeo Yo) This means how long does it take to get from Korea to China. Enjoy!
TL:DR I'm in Korea.
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