Note: all pictures are from the Shinsegae Spa Land website. Cameras are forbidden inside the facility for obvious reasons. The old Roman concept of the public bathing system has always intrigued me, and so, last Saturday, Tiffany and I decided to go to one of the biggest and most famous public bath houses jjimjilbangs in Korea: Spa Land, located in Busan. Below is the address for all you daring travelers.
Spa Land is located on the third floor. We decided to go for it anyway and bought our passes 14, won each. We were each handed a magnetic key with a number on it and told to walk to the right. The place is a maze, and we were totally confused and had no idea what to do next. The first room was filled with lockers to put our shoes in, coded by our keys. We removed them and headed to the next room, where an attendant handed us maroon shirts and grey shorts, color coded by sex. We saw a bunch of women heading towards the right side of the complex, and so we warily followed suit.
Nude women from every age between were walking around stark naked and unconcerned. Every body type was represented. There were only three other foreign women among the hundreds that were walking around. Nobody looked like a model. Nobody was free of a little pudge here and there. Nobody had a perfect butt or boobs. And yet everyone was beautiful. Scarred, scraped, pudgy- it was all real.
The changing room was comprised of lockers, vending machines, and two massive mirrored rooms equipped with lotions, hair tools, and makeup stations for women to get ready as if they were in their own bathrooms.
The place was packed and every station filled. We found our lockers and stripped down. Everyone in the room was walking around as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and the general attitude was catching. We threw our things into the lockers, and, fully nude, strolled into the next room. We got a LOT of stares; we were both foreigners, had way different body types than Korean women, and I have massive tattoos. Tattoos are hugely frowned upon in Korea as being symbols of participation in gang activity.
