Chapter Cultural Clash : 도레미찜질방; Doraemi Jimjilbang.

5/04/2014 Jjimjilbang , Korea , review , Seoul , 찜질방 0 Comments

Just touched down in Seoul this morning and upon touching down and all, I made a mistake with my guesthouse and one thing led to another, and I had to find somewhere to rest my head.
SO, I decided to go to a Jimjilbang to catch up on sleep.

All along I heard about Jimjilbang but decides against it due to the fact that I have no love for being in the same room as naked woman. (sounds a lot like a playboy mansion.) And the fact that i have to see some ahjumma's ding dong makes me very ... turned off.

Out of the pure fact that I was tired, I decided to rest my head at Doraemi Jimjilbang which is about a 15mins walk from my lodging.

cr: here

Charges are 7,000 after 9am and 10,000 after 9pm.

When i first entered, I had to put my shoes in a locker (for woman only side) then changed the key for another key, paid the 7,000 entrance fee and took a set of clothing and towels.

Upon entering the woman's side of the changing room, I was greeted with naked women. Yeap. No kidding. Thankfully, there was no ahjumma but there were a lot of ... Unnies that looks like they went out to play a lot (read gangster style). So after asking a few of them what to do, they told me to just change into my new outfit and if I want to shower, which is actually this huge area like this, I must go in, BUTT NAKED.

cr: here

Of course with people rubbing each other's back and people by the side of the "tub" chatting.
Being a rather conservative person still, I did not go in there.
But changing still have to be done in the changing room with a lot of person looking at each other change, which is kind of my limit already.

So with the main purpose of sleeping i proceeded into the common area.

cr: here

With all the beds and all laid out for you. You can purchase drinks, baked egg and shim ramyun etc.
The tv is on and there are like 2 "kilns?" sauna area for people to go get heated up or just stay at the common area where people can lie down and sleep and watch whatever that is on tv.

I loaned a blanket for 2000won and proceed to catch on my sleep.
But unfortunately, people constantly talking and snoring really makes it very hard to do so.
When I did actually fall asleep, I kept shooting up cos of the noise. Sigh...
But at one point I got a major shock.
I woke up to a dude one mattress away from me who was lying down watching tv but i was in his angle. And he looks a lot like Lee Sanghoon and because of the angle, it looked a lot like the guy was staring at me sleep.

same terrifying expression.

Overall, it was hard trying to sleep there. The constant ramyun smell was enticing. The sound was bad. It was noisy and there is no wifi. ><

But if you wanna give it a try with a friend (whom you are comfortable seeing naked), you may look through the photos here. Directions are at the bottom of the page ! :D

http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=n0501zzan&logNo=70135907574#