Note: all pictures are from the Shinsegae Spa Land website. Cameras are forbidden inside the facility for obvious reasons.
We’ve all heard the stories about Korean jjimjilbangs – a place where one can strip down and take a public bath and, if you’d like, have an old lady scrub your back. 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.
Address: Spa Land, 35, Centumnam-daero, Haeundae-gu, Busan, South Korea.
Phone: Call Center: +82-51-745-1330
(Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese)
• For more info: +82-51-745-2900
The co-ed lobby
Tiff and I rode the subway to Centum City, where Spa Land is conveniently located inside the MASSIVE Shinsegae Department Store, which is boasted as the biggest department store in the world. Spa Land is located on the third floor. It’s a massive complex of saunas, male-and-female showers and hot springs, and even massage rooms and a theater.
How do I even begin to explain this experience?
Tiff and I waited in line after staring at the signs that said in large letters “Persons with tattoos are NOT ALLOWED inside.” I have some huge tattoos on my arms, and I clearly had no way to hide them. We decided to go for it anyway and bought our passes (14,000 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.
Women’s hot springs
Walking into the women’s preparation room was like no other experience I’ve ever had. Nude women from every age between 7-70 were walking around stark naked and unconcerned. Every body type was represented.
I saw older women with terrible scarring on their backs that looked like some kind of torture; women with massive c-section scars; girls my age that had proportions the like of which I’d never seen. There were only three other foreign women among the hundreds that were walking around.
Seeing all of these different bodies without the anonymity and protection that clothing gives really made me realize just how ludicrous the media makes women’s bodies look. Expectations raised by these magazines mixed with my own insecurity over my body shocked me when I saw hundreds of naked women with NORMAL and REAL bodies. 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. It really opened my eyes on how silly it is to define what a “real” woman looks like.
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. I wasn’t particularly shy about it. 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.
Metal 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. I tried to keep my arms down as best I could, but after a while the stares stopped and we became just a couple more women enjoying the day. I still can’t believe I wasn’t kicked out, but luckily they let me stay. I assume the warning is more to be traditional than to actually keep customers out.
Heated floors
The first half of the massive women’s hot-springs room has showers that are mandatory before entering the hot springs. Tiff and I waited in line to shower, and of course did it in front of everyone since there are no stalls. While waiting in line, naked women would squeeze past me to get to another area, completely unaffected by the fact that they had just rubbed their naked body all over a complete stranger and yet somehow it wasn’t even strange.
After showering, Tiff and I bought rough cloths to use to scrub ourselves down like everyone else was doing. I saw women pulling their buttocks apart to give them a good scrub, and it was all in front of God and everybody.
For an added fee, there’s an entire room where techs will scrub you down and massage you with oil. We decided to do it ourselves for our first visit, but I’ll definitely have a tech oil me up the next time I visit.
The women’s outdoor hot spring
It felt really freeing to perform such a traditional ritual that has been practiced since the beginning of time. It’s so strange how prudish the West is in comparison to how “free” and “forward-thinking” the world is led to believe that we are. In Korea, going with family members to a jjimjilbang and scrubbing them down is a custom that’s all about caring for each other and becoming c
loser. It’s not weird or gross or sexual in any way. Just like the Romans, we scrubbed each other down before hopping in the mineral baths of all different temperatures, ranging from boiling hot to ice cold. After enjoying the indoor hot springs for a while, we headed outside to the steaming hot baths and waterfalls located among some huge stones. It felt incredible.
The Pyramid Sauna
After we had become fully relaxed and sleepy, we put on our Spa clothes and headed out to the common areas. SpaLand has a huge room with comfy seats and private movie screens, massage facilities, snack bars and restaurants, foot baths, and an endless array of saunas that one can enjoy coed.
Tiff and I went into each sauna to try it out. My favorites were the traditional Turkish and Roman saunas, and Tiff’s was the Pyramid room. We sat on the floor and lay back, enjoying the peaceful heat.
Traditional Roman Sauna
After touring the rest of the place, we paid for a 2,000 won chair-massage. I can’t even explain how incredible it was. The chair felt like a professional’s hands and in no way like a machine. Nothing like mall massage chairs. After 20 minutes I was half dead I was so relaxed.
We stayed for the entire four hour period and left happy and warm. Most jjimjilbangs have no age restrictions and are not as big or as clean as Spa Land, but they allow guests to stay much longer (even sleep there for the night!). The price for Spa Land was so reasonable that I’ll willingly go back, even though 4 hours is just so short to enjoy all that the spa has to offer.
The existence of jjimjilbangs is yet another reason why I love Korea! I’ll definitely be heading back for a romantic getaway when the time comes. 🙂
Charcoal Sauna
Massage lounge
Miss Anna Teacher 