what would you do?

Things are a bit tricky with the hubby home for the summer and I really wanted to write this entry days ago, but it just didn’t happen.  A week ago we celebrated our 9th anniversary, and if it were your 9th anniversary, what would you do?  Dinner?  A weekend getaway?  That would just be too normal I guess, and so we decided to do something totally different.  We dropped the kids off and headed to a nude Korean health spa!  Wow, talk about feeling adventurous!  My friend Jill said, “that totally sounds like a Ristow thing to do.”

Me-What?  I’ve never done anything like that before!  Okay, I went topless in Europe, but nude?  I actually was really nervous at first.  I’m really quite self-conscious.

Jill-Yes, but you would do it.  We’ve never done anything like that before, and there is a reason we’ve never done it.  We would never want to do it!

Okay, so I guess I was a bit intrigued by the whole thing and after overhearing complete strangers rave about this place, I wanted to try it and Brian is always an easy sell.  I actually thought it was co-ed and was a bit disappointed when I found out it wasn’t.  Whoa!  Don’t go thinking I am excited to hang out with naked Korean men, it’s just that a bunch of Korean women wasn’t exactly the crowd I was looking forward to hanging out with on my anniversary.

Anyway, the place was awesome and super clean (and I left there super clean too btw, more on that later).  You pay at the front and then they give you pink or blue “prison attire” depending on your gender to wear in the common areas.  When you go in the locker room, you first take off your shoes, put them in a small shoe locker and then you can walk through the room and put your clothes in the full size locker.  I undressed and redressed into my pink oversized shirt and shorts, walked 20 feet to the door that lead to the jacuzzis, saunas and steam rooms and proceeded to undress…again.  I was a newbie.  I wasn’t sure how it worked.  The facilities were super nice and as I sat naked in the spa with complete strangers, I was surprisingly comfortable with the whole idea and not self-conscious at all.  But I will also admit, I’m a total looker.  Brian says I can’t tell people that, otherwise no one will want to go with us in the future, but I am!  I’m not totally able to ignore everyone in the place!  I saw big people and little people, big chests and little chests, big bellies and little bellies.  I looked and I noticed and it actually made me feel fine and okay with being naked in front of them.  If everyone in there had “work” done, then that would be awkward.

I had a scheduled a body scrub and a massage.  Only $70 by the way.  That is a bargain considering the scrub was 40min. and the massage 60min.  Also, the $20 entrance free was waived.  Anyway, as I sat in the jacuzzi, a little Korean lady in her bra and undies came up to me to tell me it was time for my appointment.  Oh my goodness, she scrubbed dead skin off of my entire body, and I mean my entire body.  I did even know that some of these areas had dead skin and to be honest, if there was it had never bothered me before.  But I am now squeaky clean, all my 2000 parts.  She then poured oil on me and climbed on my back to massage my back.  I know, I am totally not selling you on this.  Some Korean lady in her undergarments on my back as I lay there naked.  But all I can say is that it wasn’t weird!  I don’t know why!  She didn’t stay on my back, just long enough to dig her elbows into my muscles.  At the end of the treatment she washed my hair for me, how great is that!  In the masseuse’s defense, they wear next to nothing because the massage rooms are quite warm like the rest of the facility and she was pouring water and washing hair and I guess it just made sense.  My friend, who went to a different one said she had the same experience, so maybe that’s just what they do in Korea.  I don’t know.  I was going to say I’ve never been.  But that isn’t true.  I have been to Korea, but I have never been to a Korean health spa, until now!

 

So, tell me, what would you do?  Leave a comment, let’s hear it!