Sunday, 11 May 2014

Our first Jimjilbang and the DMZ

Last weekend, we met up with our friend Scott from Guelph.  He's been in Busan teaching since September.  We joined him and his coworkers/friends a little north of us and we stayed at Itaewan Land, a Jimjilbang.   A Jimjilbang is essentially a spa, a public bath house and a hotel combined.  A 15 hour pass costs about $7.  Included in this pass are the mandatory change of clothes, 2 towels and a mat to sleep on.  We had opted to upgrade to rooms, 2 double beds and 2 single beds cost everyone about $10 a night and we were able to come and go as we pleased, unlike with the 15 hour pass.
Much of Itaewan Land was co-ed, including where we slept, ate and various other activity rooms.  If you are in the building, shoes are removed immediately and the baggy clothes provided must be worn... unless you are in the spa/pool areas.  In these places, it is not co-ed and you are expected to be naked.  Picture a very large and beautiful room with several pools and fountains.  The pools range from scalding hot to ice cold.  There are small shops with clothing(to be worn later???), beverages and a variety of other necessities and novelties.  Staff are wearing clothing, customers are not.  One can indulge in many traditional and non traditional spa treatments for very, very reasonable prices.  Ben chose to have a sports massage, I mostly just lounged around.  We both really enjoyed it.  Jimjilbangs are everywhere here and we can't wait to check out all of the other ones.
Obviously, we didn't get many pictures from our stay. No pockets for cameras...

























It was a 4 day weekend, thanks to Children's Day and Buddha's Birthday.  On the Saturday we got up early, hopped on a bus and headed North for the DMZ.  We opted for a half day tour (still too long for some of us...) and we got as close as we'll probably ever be to being in North Korea.  We visited a total of 4 sites including museums of sorts, shrines, lookouts and the most interesting (and scary) ...one of the attempted infiltration tunnels.
Tunnel 3 is about 2 km long, 2 meters high, 2 meters wide and 72 meters (240 feet) under ground.  The North Koreans deny digging this tunnel, but you will see that the South Koreans have kindly marked the dynamite holes with yellow paint, which proves that the tunnel was build from the North to the South.
I personally hated every meter of it, but Ben was very keen and now we can say we've done it. For me, the lookout was the coolest part.  Travel up a mountain at the border and put 50 cents into binoculars and snoop around.  Theres a VERY strict no photo policy at this point.   Guards are everywhere taking cameras.






 The look out

We survived!  HAPPY MOTHERS DAY !! xoxoxo

3 comments:

  1. I was slightly freaked out just reading that, but it looks so interesting! Glad you guys are out travelling and having fun, makes for a very interesting blog! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I want a sports massage! thats unreal

    ReplyDelete
  3. I thought you were going to say no pics because of the NUDIES!!!

    ReplyDelete