Yesterday I went back to 북한산 (Bukhansan) with Beer Campus 아저씨 and his wife. It was nice to get out in nature again, but the bigger story of of yesterday would be the fact that I paid a visit to a 찜질방 (jjimjilbang).
“What’s a 찜질방?” you ask. Well my friend, a 찜질방 is kind of like a sauna. There are all the rage here in Korea. After a long day of whatever (in our case, mountain climbing), you can head over to the 찜질방 and unwind.
So the story goes something like this, anytime you go on a sojurn with Koreans, things automatically get tacked on. For example, if you plan to go hiking with some Koreans, you will automatically end up having dinner as well. If you meet some college aged people to go to a movie, chances are they will suggest coffee or beers afterwards. So after hiking, we were drinking some 막걸리 (a kind of rice wine), and it was suggested that we head over to a 찜질방. I figure, “What the hell…” and we head off to the 찜질방.
So like I said it’s kind of like a sauna, but before you can go sit in a hot ass room, you have to shower up. Being an American, I have learned to be shameful of my body. I am not a fan of public showers or being nude infront of other people. This is compounded here in Korea, where being white people are constantly trying to check my junk out (I’ve had guys peer over dividers at urinals to try and scope my d). Anyhow the same shame is not held by Koreans. In the five minutes it took for me to shower, I saw more naked Asian men than I have seen naked Asian women in my entire life (including any Asian porn actresses I’ve ever seen).
After showering I put on some white loaner shorts and a t-shirt, and headed into the 찜질방 proper. Holy crap! That was some of the hottest temperatures I’ve been in…voluntarily that is. At first I couldn’t understand why any sane person would want to sit in a hot, cave like room, but after a couple minutes I actually started to enjoy it, so I laid in the heat, listening to Peterpan Complex and Nirvana and sweating my ass off. The most awesome thing about this room was the manner in which it was heated. There was a pile of hot rocks on a trolley track that every so often would be trollied into a furance to be reheated.
Now the 찜질방 is not just the super room. There was a second area, that was room temperature. This room had some huge TVs, snacks, games, ect. Being in here was kind of like hanging out in someone’s living room. Aside from learning how to play 바둑 (baduk…aka “go”), which allegedly one of the most challeging games in the world (I think it was dubbed as such in Good Will Hunting, or some other award winning movie I wanted nothing to do with), I was not to fond of the non-heated room. Like I said it was like hanging out in someone’s living room, so that means there were too many kids running around being loud, and people eating hard boiled eggs (it’s tradition, or the cool thing to do, to eat hard boiled eggs in a 찜질방). I really have an emense hatred for hard boiled eggs, and don’t really find bellowing children (or Korean soccer games) relaxing, so I spent most of my time in the hot room, rocking out and sweating my ass off.
After several hours, we showered up again, and then I headed home. Aside from the way too many naked men during the showering times, 찜질방 was actually pretty awesome. I think in my coming vacation I may have to head back to one.
So that ends the story, of my trip, but I want to take this opportunity to talk about something that I find quite disturbing…or hilarious (I’m not sure which). I only mention this now, since it is timely and this entry will most likely cause more incidents of what I’m about to talk about.
My counter aside from telling my how many people came to this website, tells me how they wound up here. A good percentage of the people who followed a link here were from a forum I post at, or other blogs (who clearly clicked the go to next blog button), but there are a chunk of people who typed something into a search engine, and whatever it was, my page allegedly had it. Now somethings such as “Kimchi Pictures” or “Korean punk bands,” are things that my page actually has some information on, but there are some that my page is never going to have. “Underaged Korean Girl Sex,” will never be on this page, inspite of the fact that I used all of these words (seperately mind you) in this post. The other thing you will never see is “Naked Nude Korean Man Picture.” I’m sorry, I’m working with an R rating, I don’t need to head into the XXX realm…and if I did, it would be “Naked Nude Korean Woman Picture,” since I’m not gay. Anyhow I just want to give the perverts a heads up. There is not any porn on this site….I think. So, if you were looking for “Hot Asian Anal Sex” or something along those lines and wound up here, I’m truly sorry.
