No, not news of an impending move out of state...
THE KOREAN BATHHOUSE!!!!!!!!!! YES, it is finally time!
You see, I had to seperate myself from the experience a bit...just to see if it really was as wonderful as I remember. And, ooooooh, it waaaaaaassss...By the way, the photos included herein are not of the actual bathhouse, but they are similar to what I'm talking about, fyi.
Jewels - who was rapidly beginning to wonder if she'd made the right choice, agreeing to go with me to a place full of naked Korean women - and I arrived at the Imperial Health Spa in Garden Grove sometime around 10 AM. We entered through the women-only entrance and approached the front desk...which was basically all there was in the room, minus a couple potted trees and a little table and chairs. We were asked if we'd made a reservation...and my heart sank. Reservation? Uh...no. Sorry. Never been here before...didn't know we were supposed to. The woman behind the desk informed us that the next available scrub/massage treatment for two more women would be at 11:30. Whew. No problem. Did we want a specific therapist? Nope, wouldn't know who to ask for. We handed over our credit cards and were given a slip of paper to sign - and tip, if we so chose, and not knowing what was appropriate, we each tipped $10, bringing the grand total for our (FIVE HOURS LONG) session and day to $80. Did I read that right? $80 (including the tip) for a 90 minute scrub-down and massage...plus unlimited access to all the facilities? Yup. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.
So we were handed a stack of towels, a stretchy locker "key" with a number (which would later be the number by which our therapists identified us), and a robe. (We collected our plastic nubbly slippers near the door.) We both stripped down - admittedly a little nervously - and donned our robes, carrying our towels along with us. Just around the corner of the changing area was a primping area with a water dispenser, tissue, hairdryers, benches, mirrors, lotions, whathaveyou, and a row of wall hangers for robes...with about half a dozen robes hanging from it. It was time. Directly to our right was the wet area of the spa, glassed in and through a door. We peered through the glass, tried not to giggle like little girls, and looked around at the small handful of naked Korean ladies in their plastic slippers showering off at little sit-down shower stalls and scrubbing the heck out of each other...I HATE to relate it to monkeys grooming each other, because that SOOOOO is not how it was, but since that's the only thing I have to which I can compare it, well...it was a foreign expression of community I was witnessing.
Anyway, we each took a deep breath, shed our robes, and plunged into the spa area, taking a good look at what surrounded us. Most of the explanation signs were in Korean, of course, but each area had a sign in English, too: the hot, still saltwater bathing pool (sigh), the steam room and the dry sauna (double sigh), the ice water (okay...cold water...) plunge pool (that looked like a baptismal font!) outside the dry sauna (UBER-sigh!), the large rectangular whirlpool, the salt-scrub steam room (more explanation to come), the stand-up shower stalls, and the sit-down shower stalls. What's an uncultured pair of white girls to do, you ask? Well, start with a good rinse-off, just so no one thought we were planning to contaminate the water with sunless tanner or Peony lotion from Bath and Body Works...you can imagine. I'm uncultured enough as it is.
We rinsed, soaped, rinsed, and then headed for the saltwater tub. It was the perfect (not too hot, but not pansy-warm) temperature, then tried out the salt steam room. It wasn't until 20 minutes later when we saw another woman take a bowl of salt into the steam room that we got it. It was nice before, of course, but we learned by watching that the point was to scrub yourself down with salt while hanging out in the steam room, and then to sit there and let it suck the impurities from your newly buffed body, rinsing off afterward. Huh. Good times. In fact, such good times that neither Jewels nor myself flinched when we scrubbed each others' backs.
Naked? Yeah, we'd forgotten about that after a good two minutes there.
No, seriously. We did. But I'll get to that.
So we enjoyed the whirlpool, hung out in the dry sauna...and then took the plunge. I don't know that I've ever moved so quickly in my life, but after the dry sauna (on two different occasions while there, mind you!) I grabbed onto the hand rails and plunged into the (ICE) cold water to my waist...and summarily dunked myself under the water. I then leapt with the speed (but lacking the grace) of a cat back out, shaking off the cold and then lounging on a lounge chair. I just know shivered thinking about it, and for those of you in southern CA today (enjoying our 90 degree heat), just imagine the ecstacy.
But that was just the first room, people. Back out in the primp area we toweled off, collected and donned our robes, and headed into the next room, full of soft padded lounge chairs, a smoothie bar and food area, and four other rooms ready to provide us with new experiences. The first had a sign written only in Korean, but Julie and I called it the "nap room" because it was silent, contained lots of blankets and "pillows" - rectangular chunks of foam covered in a plastic-type fabric - and it was just mildly cool. The second was the Jade room, wherein the floors, walls, and decor were all jade. The (very heated) jade floor was covered by bamboo mats and blankets, and even though I thought it seemed a little nuts, I felt more mentally in-tune lying in that room than I have since...well, since I gave birth to Tyler. Of course, pretty much the only thing I was thinking in there was "wow, it's hot in here," but that "it's hot in here" though wasn't corrupted by all sorts of other thoughts, ie. "I wonder what Jason/the kids are doing right now, I have to do the dishes/laundry/feed my family when I get home, I wonder if Jack Bauer's going to die on this season of 24..." You know, the usual.
Anyway, the heat won out, and we moved to the other two rooms...one was the Salt room. On the floor were salt rocks - big chunky things - and the walls and ceiling were made of bricks of salt. Another woman joined us in this room, and showed us that on the back wall was a light switch that lit up the back salt brick wall...from the rear. It glowed. AWESOME. So we lay in there on blankets and "pillows" and chatted with the woman about how this was the greatest Korean Bathhouse in southern California, how she herself was Japanese and didn't want to return to Japan because she knew how much she'd miss this very bathhouse, and how she had been afflicted for years with a completely debilitating fibromyalgia, but had started coming to the bathhouse to enjoy the facilities numerous times a week for the last six months, and was now (though not pain-free) able to get out of bed and get on with everyday life...a miracle for her. Double awesome. So then we headed to the last, and arguably my favorite room: the Mineral Fomentation room. For lack of a better description, it looked like some railroad ties had been set up on the tile floor in 6x4 "bed" shapes and filled with large red-brown marbles...marbles that turned out to be mineral-rich dried clay from the mountains of China. Japanese woman, Chinese mud, Korean bathhouse...tour of Asia! Anyway, you lie on - more like in - these toasty-warm marbles and sweat, and the sweat causes the minerals to stick to and supposedly be absorbed by your skin. You come out (particularly if you were lying in them neck-ed, like me!) coated in red-brown powder and looking like you've got a swell tan, but the best part is not the minerals...its just lying in them. They completely conform to your body. If they'd been deep enough, I'd have used them to replace my regular bed. It's like a temperpedic, only mineral-y! Aaaaaaaah.
So, anyway, it was getting close to 11:30, so we bopped back into the spa room after a quick stop off for some water. My number was called first, and I was a little worried that Jewels wasn't being called with me, but it turned out they'd whisked her away to another treatment room; she got the room that had only one bed, lucky duck, but still, I'm not complaining. I rounded a corner in the showering room into an area with three twin-sized massage-table-sans-headrest-type beds covered in thick clear plastic, drains underneath each bed. I was in the middle, and two women - one older white lady and a younger Korean girl - were on either side of me. My therapist was not a massage therapist so much as a therapy provider; there was no artful draping, and she was wearing a heavier-lace bra and underwear. (Makes sense...with all the water sloshing around, they need something they can get wet in, and something that dries quickly!) (If you bother arguing a swimsuit would work, I'm just going to roll my eyes at you.) So I lie down on this table, and the therapist begins her work scrubbing me to within an inch of my life.
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to scrub down your body with a dish scrubber - or maybe steel wool - this was it. I can't say it is for the faint of heart (especially because my shins were a little sunburned), and once or twice I wondered if she was going to draw blood in any given area, but looking at the radiant, beautiful skin of the elderly Korean women in the place, I was game for anything. My therapist donned a pair of mitts akin to loofah pads over her hands, doused me with a bowl full of heavenly warm water, and went to work. With the exception of my face and my, um, nether portions, she scrubbed EVERYTHING. Yes, EVERYTHING. Bum?
Chest? Thighs?, you ask. Come on, didn't I already say everything? Even your boobs?, you say again...YES. EVERYTHING. And it's not all that bad.
Disclaimer: It is not in any way a sexual experience. It is a sensual experience, perhaps, letting your body take a serious scrub-down, but no matter what you're imagining (gentlemen) with an underwear-clad woman buffing my buns, it's not what you think. It's WAAAAY more fabulous.
So after she did my front, she told me to flip over, and...you know how, when you scrub the bottoms of your feet, you get all that nasty crumbly dead skin? Yeah. I was COVERED in it. So she rinsed me, did my back, rinsed me, did my sides, and then sent me to rinse at the shower while she sprayed off the table. And people, my skin was BABY soft. No, that's not true...I'm pretty sure it was softer than it was when I was a baby.
Anyway, I returned to the table, she positioned a towel alongside and under my face, neck, and chin so that I could lie comfortably, and doused me with warm baby oil from what I imagine was a ketchup-like squeeze bottle. Truly, if you've never had warm baby oil flow over your freshly-scrubbed skin,
you have not lived. Oh my goodness. And then began the massage.
And more massage. And smack-like pounding of various parts, which, I'm astounded to report, not only didn't hurt (like they sounded like they would), but forced that area of my body to instantly relax...almost like whatever was being smacked was scared into submission. She used her fingers, hands, elbows, forearms, and at one point she even climbed on my back and massaged my hips with her knees. And I did not bat an eye. It was too wonderful.
After the massage, she placed warm towels on various parts of me and kneaded those areas after the towels came off...then she lifted my head, put a warm towel under my neck, draped some sort of cotton or paper toweling or - something - under my chin and at my hairline, and proceeded to cover my face in what could only have been semi-frozen cucumber mush. It smelled fabulous and felt exquisite. After she was done with some more massaging, removed my face "mask", and had dragged me with my under-neck towel to the edge of the table, she actually shampooed, conditioned, and made a bun out of my hair. Every time I thought it couldn't possibly get better, it did. Then she sat me up (and had to...I was a giant lump by then) and had me rinse my face with a coconut milk mixture, which she then poured on me...and offered me some warm water to again rinse my face, then rinsed me one final time with the rest of the water. She helped me up, gave me back my shoes, patted me, smiled and offered her name (which, regrettably, I've forgotten, but it was short and started with a K, so I'll be asking after her again!) and sent me on my way.
When I ran into Jewels again, we giggled like giddy schoolgirls, jumped up and down, exchanged quick and excited "Did she...?" stories, and then I hugged her. And we were naked.
I told you, you really get over the naked thing super-quick. And if you don't, let's be honest, it just doesn't matter.
So we donned our robes once more and sat down for a $9.00 (cash-only, be prepared!) lunch at the juice bar...seaweed soup, kimchi, some sort of yummy pickle-type veggie, and a huge bowl of bulgogi (bbq Korean SUPER-tender, ULTRA-tasty beef) with rice underneath it, onion and carrot in it, and lettuce alongside it. It is also served with a semi-spicy sort of soy sauce to dump over the meat, if you so choose. I SUCKED IT DOWN. (No surprise there...it is ME we're talking about.) DIVINE. Hands-down, some of the very best bulgogi I have EVER eaten, EVER, and that's saying something. Yuuuuummmm.
We did our thing after the massage and lunch and ended up spending between 5 and 5 1/2 hours there that day, but it was some of the best time I've spent, both for myself and with my dear friend and sister-in-law Jewels, in months...maybe years.
See, my therapist didn't need soft music and dimmed lighting and artful draping to make this one of the very best, most beneficial health experiences I've ever had. She just needed to know what my body needed. My shell. That which houses my spirit. And she knew exactly what my body needed to treat it just right. I'm not arguing that my body is just a shell...quite the opposite...but I think we often treat our bodies like they are too sacred to let anyone else touch them, and that's so incredibly unfortunate. Humans thrive on touch, first of all, and second, our bodies do NEED things if they are to continue to happily, healthily, and comfortably house our spirits, and we often disregard those needs in favor of, I don't know, television, junk food, obsessive work, lack of exercise, disregard for lotions and tonics and all things restorative.
So for me, this experience was a revelation.
It was also so incredibly FREEING. The idea that I could walk around stark naked in full view of - and in close proximity to, and even close contact with! - other women was baffling at first. There was no one averting their eyes, but no one looking at me to compare my body to theirs, to judge my paunches, wrinkles, flab, stretch marks, saggy boobs, any of it...we were all just women, no one wearing anything to set them apart or impress upon you their superior taste, money, style, or shape. We were just women, all there to take care of ourselves. Because that was what was important: us as individuals, and us as a unified group of women. There WAS no playing field to level...no playing field at all.
I remember chatting with Julie while we watching a mother and daughter at a couple of the sit-down shower stalls helping to scrub each other down using the same little scrubby mitts that the therapists use and thinking "that is AWESOME...and something I doubt my mom and/or sister and/or mother-in-law and/or friends will ever do with each other." Why? Because in this world, today, we equate intimacy to sexuality, and sexuality to sexuality, but not intimacy to intimacy. We are so afraid of being thought of as lesbians or snobby or - whatever - that we're afraid to be close to another woman, and I find that that bleeds into our emotional relationships...not just physical closeness. Anyone else ever notice how hard it is to make a good girlfriend as an adult? And I'm not talking pick up on a lesbian, I'm talking becoming earnest friends with another female. How sad. If only we could all take a page from the Korean Bathhouse book...
Point is, it was one of the best times of my life, those 5 hours in the bathhouse. I wish my husband could be there to share it with me, but I'm almost glad he can't...it means I either go alone (more likely than not, all you squeamish twits!) and spend the time reflecting, or I go with a girlfriend and bond on a completely different, intimate-but-not-sexualized level, something I/we seldom get to do with other women.
How awesome, people. A-W-E-S-O-M-E, awesome. If anyone is up for it anytime soon, has a few hours to invest, and is willing to drop $89 for lunch and a complete day at the spa, let me know, because I am SOOOOO "in." And like Julie said, "After the first 2 minutes, you don't even notice you're naked." It's true. You're just reveling in being free to be yourself without judgement and take care of your body for the God-given gift it really is.
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
