North Korea - Part 3

Everyone headed to bed early Saturday night after a less than stellar night's sleep on Friday. We woke up early for the hotel breakfast (I still can't get used to eating kimchi for breakfast no matter how hard I try) and were on the buses before 8:00am.

The morning was filled with a "hike" (a slow meander) around Samilpo Lake and some photos of large rocks which had engravings saluting the Dear Leader. The afternoon, however, was when things got interesting.

We (the group of friends I was travelling with) were told by two other friends, who had gone to North Korea last year, that the spa at Kumgangsan was one of the best they had been to in Korea. I was extra excited to give it a try.

Now, for those of you (like me) new to this whole "Korea" thing - spas and saunas are HUGE in Korea. There are Jimjibangs (saunas/bathhouses) in every neighborhood and the whole family goes on a regular basis. The sauna is divided male and female and there are different types of bathing pools (hot pool, jade pool, cold pool) and different saunas (mud sauna, warm sauna, and so on). There are also rooms where you can play cards, have snacks and take a nap if you so desire.

Now there was one deal breaker in all of this that left us Westerners giggling like school girls - the saunas are divided by sex because you go completely stark naked.

Right.

So there we were, heads tucked in our lockers while undressing, giggling and turning red on Sunday afternoon. Finally, Kelly made the first step, locked her locker and marched towards the baths, Jen followed, then Vanessa and Laina and finally, I followed. The once champion of the jimjibang, I was beet red and walking in such a fashion to try to cover myself with my arms that I probably drew even more attention to myself.

After a quick shower, we all jumped in to the pool in the center of the room. One wall was all glass windows and looked out to the pools that were outside with mountains peeking through in the background. It was hard to believe that we were indeed in North Korea.

After an hour of switching pools and saunas, we had all mastered our jimjibang fears. We toweled off, discovered a counter with combs, tissue, and lotion and then hung around applying lotion like it was an every day occurrence to be stark naked with your friends.

It was an interesting end to what had been a very interesting trip.