What It's Like as a Foreigner to Visit a Korean Bathhouse (for the first time!)

hello everybody I hope that you're well my name is Christian and welcome to my channel backpacking bananas I am in the city of soul in South Korea and I am about to have my very first Korean Bath House experience this is a very traditional common thing to have done or to go to in Korea I believe they call them gym chil bangs and to get a body scrub and so I was really Keen to have this experience I've heard it's not what we're going to be used to going to be naked amongst everyone in there I'll be honest I'm a little bit nervous because that's not the kind of exposure that I normally give myself in public places but obviously it's female only I'm going to a spa called Spa L which is in the northern side of the Gangam region of Soul so I just got a bus here I obviously can't film anything when I'm in there so I'm just going to share with you what this experience is like afterwards so let me tell you about my time time in this Korean bath house first I'll tell you exactly what happened and what to expect and then I'll tell you my thoughts and opinion on the whole experience so when you arrive you take off your shoes and put them in a little locker and then at reception you pay 20,000 Korean one and this is just to enter the spa they give you a robe two small towels and a new locker key for your downstairs Locker you then make your way downstairs to the basement where the spa actually is and find your way to the lock room when you arrive at your locker you should get on your robe you can put all of your belongings and clothes in the locker and the key is like a waterproof bracelet and that is quite literally the only thing that you keep on you you should strip down to complete Stark buug naked nudity underneath this rob you can then go wherever you want there's a big sauna infrared steam room hot tub Room Shower space meditation space now because I knew I wanted the body scrub experience I headed straight through to the m massage space which was just through from the hot tubs in there there was a menu of about seven items ranging from 50,000 Korean one to 15,000 Korean one in price now it was all in Korean so I still don't know exactly which price meant what but I told her I wanted a body scrub massage and facial and to be honest it was still unclear how much that was going to cost but she wrote down our names on the wall and the time of our appointment we made sure it was at least 20 minutes later because I've heard that it's very important to warm up our bodies in the hot tubs to soften the skin before your scrub we also found out at this point that you had to pay for this in cash which at this point I did not have so we actually went back to our lockers to grab our purse back up to reception and there was an ATM there so I got out the maximum amount of 150,000 Korean one just in case that's how much my treatment would be so I would recommend getting this cash out before you had down if you don't already have any we then went back down and straight to the hot tub room you must must shower before you go in the water there are little Cubbies where you can stick your robe and towels but literally everything is communal and everyone just walks around Buck Naked there was tubs of a few different temperatures I could handle the one that was about 39° but I could not handle the one that was hotter than that they also had a 15° plunge pool as well so I kind of flittered in between the pools conscious that I wanted to warm my skin as much as possible before my scrub then my massuse actually came up to me to tell me that it was time for my appointment they are very good at finding you and so you go over to the massage space which is all completely open and communal there are just a few beds all in a row and any previous reservations you've ever had about revealing yourself to people you don't know throw them out of the window because you're about to spend the next hour butt naked posing in different positions in an open room with lots of people just Milling around you so first is the body scrub the lady had me lie down on my back as she scrubbed me quite literally from head to toe no holding back on any nooks and crannies they really get right into every crevice even though super close to your V JJ by the way the massas are literally in their underwear and that does make you feel a lot better about being naked yourself I closed my eyes during this whole thing because I felt more comfortable that way anyway she tells you to switch up positions so she can really get every angle on your side other side lying on your front and the scrub is vigorous it's certainly not gentle and if you do look you can literally see all of the dead skin on the table there is so much after about 20 minutes of scrubbing she grabs a massive bucket of warm water and quite literally just chucked it all over me and the whole table like a big adult baptism she then told me to go and wash myself and pointed in the direction of this shower space right next to the hot tub so I went over they're like seated showers so you sit down and make sure you have got all of those scrubbing beads off you and then you return to the table next was the massage so I lay on my friend so she covered my entire body with hot towels and started the massage with strong squeezing technique kind of just working her way around the backside of my body pushing and squeezing my different body parts at one point I was thinking wow my M is so strong this is a lot of pressure that she is managing to press so I decided to have a little peek and I opened my eyes to see her quite literally standing right on top of me on top of the table and just walking all over me it was a bit of a jump scare I was not expecting to see that then she got off and to do my upper back she leapt on top of me and straddled me to get into position nothing about this was gentle at some point I turned over onto my back there were new hot towels over me and she repeated this pushing and squeezing massaging technique luckily she did not stand on top of me or straddle me when I was lying on my back though she then removed the towels and lathered me up in an incredibly oily slimy creamy substance for the second part of the massage I preferred this part as it was more of like a rubbing rather than a squeezing but don't be fooled it is still aggressive I felt like a ragd doll because when she was done with a body part she would just fling it out of the way and it would land on the table and like a slimy slap and I was Slim around this table like a literal slug I thought I was going to slide off at one point I was actually laughing inside of my head because I've never experienced anything like this before at some point she started the facial where she put a very thick cucumber smelling sludge all over my face cucumbers over my eyes and she then wrapped up my whole head in a towel as in the whole front side as well completely covered so at this point you're just entirely naked with your head entirely covered in a towel all I was thinking was thank God my nose wasn't blocked because if I had to breathe through my mouth during that we would have run into some issues whilst the product did its work on my face she continued to massage my body and she also washed and vigorously massaged my head as well then my hair really did not feel soft after that so I'm not sure what she washed it with or what the purpose of that was anyway after 1 hour in the massage chair my treatment was over and she asked me to go back in the shower myself again in those sit down showers and then I had to pay so I went back to my locker to get my cash out and it was 100,000 Korean one in hindsight I should have kept that cash in my pocket of my robe so I didn't have to go all the way back to my locker sadly I didn't have time to stay much longer after the treatment I did want to experience the sauna but I also didn't want to affect how my skin currently felt because I kid you not I felt like an absolute newborn baby my skin was so soft so Supple my body felt relaxed I never felt so clean in my life so I walked back to my locker got dressed grabbed my things and off I went so that was what happened and what you can expects in a Korean bath house now I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel pretty uncomfortable when I took my robe off for the very first time and was completely naked in front of all of these strangers it was just so foreign to me but to be fair he very quickly get used to it because literally everyone is naked from the moment you walk downstairs and literally no one cares and you see women with all types of body shapes and sizes women with all different styles of pubic hair some Bal some neatly kept some full bushes and once you realize that this is a safe space and this is the norm and that of course everyone has a body it really makes you start to question why we as a society are so conservative about our bodies and why it's so horrifying to see nipples and vaginas and public why that whole thing is literally just a social construct and you know seeing all of these women with all these different bodies wanding around so freely really made me feel very self-confident in my own body and liberated and empowered and it really got me thinking most of the time when we see women's bodies is on social media and more often than not it's an influencer with like a modelik figure it often feels when you spend a lot of time online that that body type bodies that are conventionally perfect is the norm and if you don't look like that that you are less than perfect you don't look as good as that and it causes us to be very self-critical of our own bodies and can cause a lot of self-loathing which of course is really not nice at all I think it's such a breath of fresh air to be exposed to what normal bodies look like the Korean bath house really emphasized this realization for me does this mean I'm going to start going to nud dis beaches and and possibly start doing other nudist activities no probably not despite this realization and new appreciation I don't think I would quite feel comfortable with doing that yet it still feels weird and bizarre and just so damn foreign that I still think it's very much outside of my comfort zone but I would totally go to a Korean bath house again I think it would take me a few visits there to normalize this experience for me and I genuinely think that it would do wonders for my self-confidence self acceptance and not to mention the banging smooth soft skin and I'm glad that the Korean lady was as rough and vigorous as she was and spoke basically no English because I think when you are in a position that feels vulnerable You' got to be dealt with in a non-nonsense attitude to make you not care she's like I don't give a so you shouldn't give a I remember an interview that Rihanna once did about getting a wax down there and she said that she had specifically requested a non-nonsense old Russian woman who spoke no English instead unfortunately she was given a young American girl who knew exactly who she was and Rihanna felt so uncomfortable I think the same goes for this Korean bath house do you know what I mean so that was my experience and thoughts I would highly recommend visiting a Korean bath house went in Korea and going for the whole body scrub experience not only do I feel like a changed woman physically I feel like a changed woman mentally as well and like I always say it's only when we take our outside of our comfort zone that we start to grow as people I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments have you ever done this would you do this let me know I hope you guys enjoyed this video and I will see you in the next one bye-bye

Channel: Backpacking Bananas

Views: 17,356

Keywords: gap year ideas, travel tips, travel guide, budget travel, backpacking solo, solo female travel, uk travel vlogger, korean bathhouse, spa lei, jjimjilbang, foreigner in jjimjilbang, what to expect at a jjimjilbang, what a korean bathhouse is like, best jjimjilbang in seoul, best korean bathhouse in seoul, seoul jjimjilbang, seoul korean bathhouse, foreigner in korean bathhouse, what its like as a foreigner to visit a korean bathhouse, first time in korean bathhouse

Id: 7myAcSBtHPs

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 10 2024