찜질방 JJim Jil Bang: Dragon Hill Spa

Last Sunday, I met up with Erin and 3 other teachers in Bucheon (Mel, Moira, and Jamie). The plan was to check out Dragon Hill Spa(jjim jil bang), which Erin and I have been planning to go to for months but never did...

What's a JJim Jil Bang you say? Well it's basically a Korean bath house. It has saunas, and steam rooms, and usually a common (co-ed) area with a heated floor that you can sleep on or just hang out and watch TV, etc. There are sleeping rooms too, and these places are abundant around Korea and very cheap. We're talking 12,000 Won at the most, and that's for 12 hours.

Erin and I stayed at a JJimJilBang when we first got to Korea and took a trip to Itaewon in Seoul. Which reminds me, I never wrote about our Homo Hill/Hooker Hill experience there. The point is, we slept at a jjimjilbang in Itaewon at 4:00a.m. when we were drunk and didn't want to wait for the subway system to open up. I think we paid 10,000 that time and they gave us an orange t-shirt/shorts outfit and we slept in a warm TV room on a bench because we weren't comfortable sleeping on the floor.

Getting back to Dragon Hill Jjim Jil Bang--it's amazing! I'm willing to wager that it's the best one in Korea.

So, we met on Sunday around 2:30 at Yongsan station and grabbed some lunch at Papa John's. (Yes, there is a papa john's pizza here and it was delicious--we got the spinach, alfredo, meaty, thin crust pizza and devoured it). After stuffing ourselves silly, we made way to Dragon Hill.

For only 12,000won on weekends and you can spend 12 hours there. You get a comfy pair of long shorts (which somehow ended up in my backpack ;) and a t-shirt; you know the really soft, worn and washed 1,000 times kind. There are 10 floors of things to do, including: a fitness center, an outdoor heated pool, a garden theatre, men and women only floors, a couple restaurants, and a common area. Anywho, we payed, and got our locker keys. The locker key is a plastic bracelet with key attached and a number disc that you scan on a turnstile to get in and use it as a charge card for any extra services or food you want while inside the spa. You pay for any charges you accrue before you leave the building. We put our shoes in the shoe locker, then made our way up to the 3rd floor-for women only-and proceeded to strip down to nothing and put everything in our big lockers.
(This is truly the Korean way, every woman of every shape, age, and type, walks around naked on the women's floor...I however, chose to wear my underwear and a top for reasons not worth mentioning. I actually felt more awkward wearing underwear around all the nakedness. Next time, I'll do it the Korean way...like Erin said, it's part of the whole experience.)

First, all the ladies wanted to hit a few hot baths/whirl pool spa type things. There were probably 10-12 different hot pools. Some were really really hot, and some weren't as scalding as the others. We started off in one that was around 40 degrees Celsius (they all have a temp. displayed above). Then I tried to move into the next one beside it that was maybe 45 C, but I couldn't do it. It burned and tingled.

Next, we decided to go to the outdoor section, which had a ginseng bath, a pine wood bath, and heated "walking pool" with jet currents that we swam in. I liked the ginseng bath. Maybe just because I like ginseng and the idea of bathing in it was titillating. It was chilly outside, so the hot spas felt nice.

We went back inside and tried out the 80C dry sauna. I couldn't stay in it more than 10 seconds, it's like sitting in your car in Florida during the summer with your windows up and no air. Why would anyone do it? Beside the dry sauna, however, there was an aroma-therapy steammy sauna and that was nice, but you instantly drip with sweat when you go in it. In front of the saunas there is a (freezing) cold swimming pool and there are 3 lines of sit-down shower stalls were you can scrub yourself with body scrub and whatnot. Additionally, you can pay to have a Korean woman in her bra and underwear, scrub you down from face to foot. Erin and Moira paid for this service and Erin said the amount of dirt and dead skin they get off of you is disgusting, but good. I'm definitely getting the scrub-down next time I go.

Erin and I wandered over to the other side of the floor and found more hot baths. We sat in a sea salt water bath for a bit, which is where we saw the scrub-down services--including a placenta massage...whatever that means ;P

I really wanted to get a facial, so I went back upstairs to the Orchid Spa and decided on getting the 2nd facial on the list. The first one was a basic facial and it seemed like it wouldn't be worth the money, judging only by the English translation. The 2nd was called a "Face Reduction" and I thought maybe it would be like a pore reduction type thing. It lasted for about 1 hour. First, she used this electric scraper thing on my face, which didn't hurt, it just sounded intimidating. Then, she massaged my face (really hard) with multiple gels/lotions. It kinda hurt at times, but I figured it was to really get deep down into my skin or something. She also massaged my neck and shoulders, which was nice. There was a little bit of face scrub, and then something like an ultra-sound, and more massaging and laying for a while with some kind of warm mask applied over a thin layer of tissue on my face, which hardened and was then removed. I felt good about the facial afterwards, like I got my money's worth. Later on though, my face was sore from the rough massaging. I asked my friend Lee about it and told him what it was called. Apparently, it's called a face reduction to help make your face smaller by massaging your facial muscles deeply. Most Korean/Japanese women desire a smaller face, so this is what they do to get it, well, this and plastic surgery. 3 days later, I don't think my face looks much smaller, but I think whatever she did is bringing everything to the surface because my skin has broken out a bit. Maybe I'll just go for the regular facial next time...or just shoot for the body scrub.

I came out of the room to see the girls laying in massage chairs. I put my Dragon Hill outfit on and we all went to the 1st floor/common area. The floor is heated everywhere and people are just hanging out. You can lay on the warm floor and watch Korean TV shows on a big flat screen, or you can go into one of the many warm sauna-type rooms all around the big room. There was a jade sauna, where the floor is made of Jade and I think there was some aroma-therapy happening in there, but we were finished sweating so we decided against it. Instead, we went ino an ice room and took a picture on Jamie's camera ;) There were also rooms that burned with charcoal and smelled like barbeque. We peaked inside a few and people were mostly laying down on the floor and resting, as the rooms were kinda dark. After a few more pictures, everyone was ready for dinner...except me, I just wanted a beer. And that beer hit the spot.

All in all, the Dragon Hill spa is the best place to go and relax. We want to make it a bi-monthly activity. Once I get the pics from Jamie, I'll post them ;)