jim jil bang

It is cold here. It has been cold for awhile and it won't be warming up anytime soon. Our family has been indulging in a very Korean way of keeping warm. We have discovered Korean saunas and we are in love. These pictures show how cold it has been as these are the inside of our windows. The moisture builds up from the condensation and freezes. The house is basically pretty warm as this is between the outer windows and the inner set. If we keep the inner set closed this cold area doesn't really affect our environment inside the apartment.
So on evenings like these we head out to our local jim jil bang. A jim jil bang is a sauna where part of the building is separated by gender and then there is a common area where everyone wears uniforms and it is co-ed. I will try to describe what it is like in the separated section first. You go in and when you pay you are issued towels and a key to a locker. This is where John and us girls part ways. We head into the ladies dressing room where we all get naked and put our clothes in our lockers. Then we go into the shower and hot tubs room. This is an amazing place. In one area women in underwear and bras are massaging and scrubbing women on tables for a fee. Other women are showering and scrubbing themselves and each other. It is really great - everyone is naked except the massage table ladies and once you have rinsed off you can go in the tubs. There are usually a few different ones that are different temperatures and there is usually one that has a big teabag of green tea floating in it. Usually there is a warm one, a hot one and a very hot one as well as one cold one. Netta spends most of her time in the freezing one or trying to get me to go in the freezing one with her. In one of our local ones there is a little pool for little ones. There are also saunas in this section for those who would rather go in them in the nude I guess. Usually after about an hour of soaking we have a time to meet John and we get dressed in our uniforms that they gave us when we paid and we go into the common area. For obvious reasons I don't have photos of the showering tubbing area but here are some from the jim jil bang area.
Here are some folks chilling in the common area. People lay around on mats and relax. There is usually a restaurant, snack area, sometimes a play room, and a few different saunas. They are usually different temperatures and there is generally a cold room. You can even sleep in these places for the night. We have a few friends who have slept in them - it is cheap and seems nice. We saw babies napping, kids playing, lovers cuddling and lots of people sleeping and drinking.
Here is Netta having ice cream - it is so warm in there that an ice cream is refreshing. We always feel warm inside and out after we go there. When we leave we feel like it is actually warmer outside because we are so thoroughly warmed.
In the background here you can see people relaxing - kind of hard to photograph it as it feels invasive to be snapping photos. The uniforms are usually different colors for men, women and children. We haven't seen any foreigners in these yet - well actually one woman from Vietnam talked to me once.
I can't stand most of the saunas themselves as they are so stifling and hot - but there is one that I loved. It is warm, about 80 degrees F I think, and the whole floor is made of small stones. There are wooden headrests placed all around the perimeter of the circular space and everyone lays in the warm stones with their feet in the center. Very comfortable for my body, soothing and nice.

The kids ask every day to go to the sauna- it is a good time for all.

I think Santa Cruz needs one - what do you think? Business opportunity? Investors?