A South Korean Scrubdown

Teens at Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul

There's an amazing episode of Parts Unknown from a few years back in which Anthony Bourdain goes to South Korea. The whole episode is told in reverse, beginning with a punishing hangover, and then rewinding through the delirious consumption of gallons of soju and Korean lager as the viewer pieces together what could have led to us finding Bourdain, grey-faced and miserable, having every inch of his body intimately and punishingly scrubbed raw in a blue tiled bath house. I get a sympathy headache every time I watch it. So logically, I decided I MUST visit South Korea, and while there, that I must strip naked and allow a stranger to remove my top three layers of skin with a brillo pad.

We spent nine days in the country, reveling in its color, vivacity, and silliness. Especially after spending a few weeks in Japan, where everything is beautiful and subtle but also formal and often solemn, in South Korea, it felt like you could dance on the table and no one would scold you. In three days in the city of Gyeongju, we stumbled on two different outdoor music festivals, each boasting an army of backup dancers and an entire slate of different artists. This was in the 43rd most populous city in South Korea.

It's hard to explain the pervasiveness of South Korean spa culture to westerners, who generally prefer to bathe within the confines of their own home. For Koreans, visiting a spa is a weekly or even daily excursion--families take their children; young adults go together on first dates; salarymen go to nap off their hangovers. For around $10, you can buy a 24-hour pass to a jjimjilbang (helpfully shortened to j-bang colloquially), and spend as long as you like hopping between the myriad different wet and dry saunas. I have heard whispers of backpackers skipping hotels altogether and just staying at the j-bang. They must have very clear pores.



CommonGround, a mall made from 200 blue shipping containers and selfie center for Seoul teens

Every morning in Seoul, my husband and I would declare that THIS was the day we were going to a spa-- and then chicken out, deciding instead to shop for niche Korean leather goods or eat sulbing at an outpost of the Korean Dessert Café or investigate one of the many excellent microbreweries and tap rooms popping up all over the city.

The old Magpie Brewing in Hongdae, Seoul

The last city of our trip was Busan, South Korea's second largest. It's a big city, but it's on the beach and has a cool, laid-back vibe. By the time we got there, I couldn't really remember why I had added it to our itinerary--and allotted it as many nights as Tokyo, Kyoto, and Seoul--but it was FULL of galleries and incredible temples, and our time there also involved a cable car, which means I award it a special bonus of one million points. Busan ended up being our favorite place in either country. It is also where we went to Spaland.



Gamechon Culture Village in Busan, South Korea

SPALAND! It's a real place! It's in the biggest mall in the world, Centum City! It has 22 spas and 13 different themed saunas, and one is called the wave-dream room! In another room, I felt like a piece of flatbread in a clay oven! There is a TV room and also you can buy beer with the bracelet on your wrist!

When you arrive, you pay $12 and they give you a locker key and a cotton suit that looks like scrubs if you could get scrubs with knee-length shorts. Women get maroon and men get khaki, and no one has ever looked more glamorous. You head to your respective locker room, stow everything you own, and give yourself a pre-sauna hose down. Then, you don the spa scrubs and head back out into the co-ed section of this spa-tropolis. (Me-spa-polis? I'll work on it.) There is a giant moonscape of outdoor wading foot spas with little wooden booths, where teenaged Korean couples sit side-by-side playing games on their phones and taking selfies.

Further into the enormous complex, we tried all the saunas-- the ice room, the pyramid room, the "body-sound" room, the room built entirely of pink salt bricks. All of these rooms would be excellent places to take artsy Instagram photos, except you're sweating and wearing scrubs and no bra. Finally, our confidence bolstered after a couple hours of watching everyone to make sure we weren't committing any grievous cultural errors, we separated back to our gendered baths.

Here's where I have to make an admission. I like to pretend that I am someone who is spontaneous and confident and always up to try something new; that I am someone with no problem sashaying my way through a 5,000 square foot bath complex in the altogether, surrounded by dozens of Korean women of every age. That I am so secure and open-minded that saddling up next to a stranger whose skin has shriveled and wrinkled from soaking and sitting there, staring at the wall, feels freeing and natural. But guys, at first I was really intimidated. I switched on a mantra ticker in my head that kept repeating, "You will not be the oldest nor the youngest; the biggest nor the smallest; you are not notable in anyway; you will never see anyone here again." And it was true! I do not think I have ever seen anyone from the womens' baths at Spaland again, and also I wouldn't know if I did, because I did not make eye contact with anyone for the entire hour!

The number of people who were not staring at me in the j-bang

Finally, after marinating in all sorts of pools of varying temperatures, salted and freshwater, indoors and out, I sucked it up and walked (naked!) into what was essentially a completely tiled office to inquire about a scrub. I am laughing remembering this, because it was that dream where you're in a new school and you don't know anyone and you need to ask questions, but you're not wearing any clothes, but this was real life, and also everyone only spoke Korean and I am six feet tall.

Through pointing at a menu of services, helped by a very kind woman who understood there were not many reasons I would be wandering into an office asking questions in no clothes, I ended up on one of a row of massage tables staffed by women in black bras, underwear, and shower slides. I had opted for the scrub that included the facial treatment, so she blessedly lathered my whole face with a thick mask, and my eyes were closed for the rest of the experience. And then she scrubbed me within an inch of my life. She muscled me around like she was trussing a chicken, and when it was all done, a plucked chicken is what I felt like. Like, I used to have freckles, and then I got this scrub. I didn't have to shave for weeks because every hair anywhere on my person had been sloughed away. I think I lost three pounds of skin. Finally, she rinsed away my mask, hosed me and the table down, and sent me on my way. I was grinning, half from the surreality of it all, and half because I felt like I had been powerwashed. I also felt like a champ, because despite all of my dithering and insecurities, I was now the sort of traveler who gets a full body scrub at a Korean j-bang. Hear me roar! Just let me put my maroon short-set back on first.

Bonus cable car!

 

Tokyo Means Sushi for Breakfast

Even with the benefit of jet lag, I am not a morning person, so let’s be real: there was no way I was going to the tuna auction at Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market, where people line up at 3am to get one of 120 spots to watch dudes buy super expensive fish in a warehouse-sized walk-in fridge. So on our first morning in Tokyo, I felt pretty good about our 6:30 wake up. I showered in the tiny cube of a bathroom, plastic-walled so everything could be hosed down. I dressed for suffocating heat and humidity, and I spent more than a little time looking very closely at my face in the mirror in search of new fine lines and wrinkles, as the dawn had brought along with it my 31^st birthday.

Lotuses bigger than my FACE (and tbh I have a big face)

Armed with our wifi egg to give us the Immeasurable Wealth of the Internet (and to power Google Translate, thank God), we set off past the lake of lotuses at Ueno Park toward the subway, leery of tales of people packed like sardines (excuse me, like iwashi.) We were ready for crowded trains—We’ve lived in New York and studied in Moscow, where the Russian train conductors like to keep you on your toes by opening and closing the doors while the train is still in motion. It’s very exciting.

As it was morning rush hour, we were ready to squish. The train streaked into the station, and we stepped into the door that opened in front of us. I looked around. There seemed to be a whole lot of women. Like, only women. “Jared,” I said, “Are these cars separated by gender?” Which is when my 6’3”, heavily bearded husband noticed the pink sign indicating that we were in the Women Only car. Excuse me, all my friends who have traveled in Japan: Why did no one warn me that there are Women Only cars on the Tokyo subway?! We made it back out to the platform with seconds to spare and stood there panting, looking somewhere between shocked and relieved, as the train pulled out of the station, all the white button downs and black pants of the Japanese salary men and women blurring into two solid contrasting lines as the cars gained speed.

We got onto the next train and into an appropriate car without incident, and finally strolled through the gates of the fish market around 8:30. Tiny carts with what looked like trash cans topped with steering wheels sped around us in every direction on the wet asphalt. Awnings and banners hung from sushiya storefronts, still in the morning heat. And let me be honest about something: it smelled like fish. Very fresh fish, but still fish. Just so you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

The sweaty line at Sushi Daiwa

We found our destination, Sushi Daiwa, by the line, a snake of forty or so patrons packed tight to try and fit in the small patch of shade afforded by the roof’s overhang. As we shuffled forward, sweat started running down my back in rivulets. When I was suitably wilted and Jared had soaked through his tshirt, we were ushered inside.

The spot is long and very narrow, with twelve stools at the sushi counter, and no room for the chefs to even switch spots as they work. There’s no ordering involved here, because your presence indicates you’re having the omakase, which is hot green tea, a deliciously briny miso soup with tiny clams, and eight pieces of excellent sushi: buttery otoro (think the Wagyu beef of tuna), perfect, shiny white squid, a mountain of silky uni, a pearly pink shrimp, tiny rolls with tuna and with salmon roe, a rosy slab of chutoro, a silvery slice of horse mackerel, and a sponge of baby eel. And a giant 9am Asahi, because most of the people in the Tsukiji Fish Market have been awake long enough that it’s functionally happy hour, and because they’re reasonable people.

Asakusa Temple, in case you have forgotten you're in Japan

We were done eating in 15 minutes, ushered out the back door into the middle of the market stalls selling all things briny, spiny, spiky, and scaly. Our next stop was Asakusa Temple, and we headed out into the concrete and neon wilds of Tokyo confident that sushi for breakfast had cured our jet lag. Later that afternoon, a 30-minute power nap accidentally became a six-hour doze, but for those brief sunny birthday morning minutes, I was full and proud of myself for getting up early and eating the eel and surviving the Tokyo subway during the morning commute, and things were very good.

Timeless Thailand: Floating Raft Houses in Khao Sok National Park

Yes, Thailand can look like this (which was taken in Koh Samui)

 Sure, Thailand has some wildly gorgeous white sand beaches with cute Australian bartenders making vibrant fruity cocktails and shacks on the sand where you can buy the best noodles of your life for two dollars. But my favorite part of the country is Khao Sok, a national park comprised of a dense tangle of jungle a little over 300 miles south of Bangkok.

Because we visited Thailand on our honeymoon, we uncharacteristically stayed at five star hotels all over the country—and this is a place to do that, because even the bougiest places have rooms for under $200 a night. But there are no JW Mariotts in Surat Thani, a hub town built mostly of parking lot that tourists only buzz through on their way to either the jungles or the islands, so we stayed at a concrete box called the S Tara Grand. It was $30 for the night. When we walked in, there was an illustrated sign that said “No Smoking No Pet No Durian.”

Overall, very good advice, I think

We got hour long foot massages at the spa in the lobby, occasionally visited by a little gecko. Then we had some (delicious) noodles and a large Chang beer in the restaurant, which was empty except for us and a young Thai couple with a newborn, and turned in early to prepare for our adventure the next morning.

This was Christmas Eve. It was surreal and funny and magical and there was blessedly no durian.

is this what heaven looks like?

At six the next morning, a van picked us up at the hotel to drive into the jungle. The driver wished us Merry Christmas and offered no explanation for the teenage girl asleep in the front seat. About an hour into the ride, he dropped her off on the side of the road, and as we drove away I watched out the back window as she began to set up a food stall. (Getting into cars with strangers and riding until they motioned for us to get out was a real theme in Thailand. In these situations, I usually say something to Jared like, “At least if this is how we die, it’s an interesting story,” which I do not think he finds particularly reassuring.)

After some time and a stop at a Thai 7-11 for coffee and teeth-crackingly crunchy snacks, we pulled up to a Jungle themed treehouse hotel very well camouflaged in the middle of the jungle. Here, we had breakfast and then got into another van driven by a stranger who told us to call him “Big Man” (it was an appropriate moniker), who turned out to be our guide for the ensuing adventure. We drove to Cheow Lan Lake, left the vast majority of our worldly possessions in the back of the van, and got into a long tail boat. It was pouring rain as we took off into a magical world out of Fern Gully or Jurassic Park; Khao Sok is older than the Amazon.

Two hours later and soaked to the bone, we arrived at our floating raft houses. A thatched roofed, open walled dining space opened off of the long-tail boat parking lot. Two bright yellow kayaks floated in the green water, and a long line of wooden huts stretched along a rough-hewn walkway built of planks lashed together with rope. Inside each hut was a queen-sized mattress and a tent of mosquito netting. The bathroom was up a hill and we were told there were only two hours of electricity a night.

Big Man builds some ducks

Almost immediately upon arrival, Big Man loaded us back into the long tail boat and we headed out on a hike. After snaking through muddy trails, we came to a cave, which he helpfully told us would have water “to here,” indicating his waist, “to here,” indicating his chest, and “to here,” holding his hand above his head. I spent 45 minutes feeling like a badass aquatic version of SpiderMan, shimmying up pitch black waterfalls and swimming between slick boulders, before Big Man shined his flashlight on a wall to kindly illuminate a spider bigger than my head. And then we entered the bat cave.

hard pass on the bats, thanks

There were just millions of bats hanging around stalactites. I did not prefer the bats myself, but Rosa, the seven year old German girl in our group, plowed ahead gleefully at Big Man’s side.

A haiku:
Dirty hand, cold Chang
It's Khao Sok in a nutshell
Yes please, I'll take two

After two more hours of hiking, which included Jared wiping out down a muddy hill and finding a leech setting up shop on his ankle, and me being a super cool and fearless lady explorer who would charge anywhere through this verdant jungle as long as the bouncing seven year old and a guide doing the whole hike barefoot led the way, our long tail sliced back through the still waters to our huts. We drank some Changs on our tiny front porch and then dove right into the water for a swim. Toucans and macaques spotted the prehistoric trees. For dinner, we shared a whole fish with a Parisian couple who explained the underground Paris rap scene to us in French. It was still Christmas. At 10pm, our two hours of electricity expended, the string lights clicked off and we fell asleep in the middle of a profound darkness.